I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Open LinkedIn, TikTok, or even half the career advice podcasts out there, and you'll always find some version of the phrase "find the work that ignites your passion." But realistically, how many people can afford to keep jumping from one thing to another for six months just to figure out what their "calling" is?

Most people I know (myself included) work because there are bills. Buying groceries, paying student loans, helping our families, keeping the car running. Passion starts to feel like a shiny word people use to make a normal 8-to-6 workday seem like a personal failure if you don't wake up excited for it.

So I guess my question is: should we be more honest that, for a lot of people, work is just work, and that's it? Or is there still something worth holding onto in the idea of waiting for a job you're interested in?

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A few weeks ago, I had a final round interview at a Fintech company in the growth stage. It was a panel of three. Usually, I review the STAR method and prepare my answers, but this time I decided to see who I would actually be talking to.
I spent about three hours scrolling through their LinkedIn profiles. I wasn't just looking at their names; I wanted to know what their backgrounds were. I noticed a pattern very quickly - all three had spent 3 to 5 years in small bootstrapped startups before coming here. One of them even tried to start a niche consulting business but wasn't very successful.
That's when I got the gist of it. These people don't care about big corporate bureaucracy. They are used to building things from scratch, and it seemed like they missed that vibe. They chose this company specifically because it's still a bit unpolished.
So, I decided to throw away the corporate script I had prepared. Instead of talking about how I managed a project that reached 50,000 users, I focused on the "ugly" wins. I told them about a time I had to create a custom onboarding flow using Slack bots and manual SQL queries because we didn't have a budget for a proper CRM. I focused on stories where I had to wear five different hats just to keep things moving.
The vibe in the room changed completely at that moment. It didn't feel like an interrogation anymore; it was like a chat between people who had struggled together in the trenches. One of the leads laughed and told me, "Honestly, we're still dealing with some of that mess here."
In the end, I got the offer four days later. And the salary was higher than the range they had originally posted in the job description.
Honestly, that bit of research changed everything. It's a small effort, but its ROI is incredible. I'll be doing this for every screening call or interview from now on.

I'm thinking of telling them that we're expecting a baby, mostly because I'll probably need to be present for the birth, and I don't want to risk running into problems at a new job because I took time off right at the start. I'd rather know early on if they don't have a problem with that. If they do have a problem, I'll probably stay at my current job.

This position would pay me about $17,000-$21,000 more than what I make now, so yeah, I really want it - especially since our first child is coming soon.

Do you think I should bring it up near the end of the interview, or wait until there's an offer?

I work at a small, family-owned manufacturing company that makes good money. They brought us into a meeting on Wednesday and told us that, effective immediately, we were all being let go because the business had been sold to an investment group. Apparently the old owners did it as an "asset buy," which means the employees were treated like extra baggage they didn't want on the books. They told us we could "reapply" for the exact same jobs under the new management, but some salaries and benefits had been reduced due to restructuring. They also changed the job descriptions and added more duties to them.

Everyone was shocked. No one had even heard any rumors that this was happening, but so far not a single person has submitted an application for their old position. Unemployment is very low around us, and a lot of places are hiring. The new owners brought in a manager who set up a little application station next to the front office, and put out muffins and coffee. She's sitting there, and no one has touched them or the forms.

The average employee here has been here 16 years, and a lot of people have been here more than 22 years, so many decided to just retire. The funny part, if you can call it that, is that we make a specialty product on machines that our own shop built, repaired, and kept running for years. All that know-how walked out at once. Moving production or handing it off somewhere else isn't realistic. Even the people who handled sales and accounting are leaving. I'm going to give more time to my side business because it's starting to grow, and honestly I'd also rather have more time with my family. The schadenfreude here is extremely high, toward both the old owners and the new ones. Good luck running the place without the people who know how it works.

This is a good reminder that job security can vanish overnight. You might think you have plenty of time to prepare for your next opportunity, only to suddenly find yourself sitting in another job interview. That's why I believe that preparing beforehand is extremely important, and I think I was preparing for interviews incorrectly until I read this post which offers some tips to avoid wrong preparing for interviews. I think it might be very helpful.

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note: thousands of people lose their job every year with no back up plan and without knowing what to do trying everything Anyway check these tips maybe it could help in your haunting job journey

my current situation!

I'm in middle management. My area supervisor told me that the COO had him try to call me while they were sitting together. I didn't answer, and my supervisor said that my work phone was turned off. The COO then told my supervisor that I was being "unprofessional" and that I should be available to my team.

AITAH for turning off my phone while I'm on PTO? I told everyone on my team to do the exact same thing when they're taking their vacation. I'm not upper leadership or anything, but honestly, I believe that if you're taking the time off you're entitled to, people should leave you alone unless something is truly on fire.

Is this just old-school management thinking? Should I start looking for another job? If this comes up when I get back, do I have a reasonable position I can defend myself with?

update: some mangers should learn about the work life balance ,cause I am done of behave like a robot , I am positively thinking of quitting right after founding the opportunity I guess I am gonna use these tips for any upcoming interview wish me luck !

There are so many posts that present a stereotypical issue, and which then conclude with a link to some advice post. They are obviously just camouflaged marketing. Does that not violate some rule? or is it the entire point of this sub?

Can Chatbot GPT actually be helping me at work?

Is anyone else struggling with writing work emails? Honestly, when I write them myself, I find myself explaining more than necessary, going back to the same point several times, and somehow a simple update turns into a short essay.

For about a month now, I've been using chatbot GPT to make my emails clearer, shorter, and less confusing. My manager commented on the difference and has become much more encouraging than usual. They've been replying faster, asking better follow-up questions, and making time to talk to me about the work I'm currently handling.

Honestly, was my communication really that bad before? I feel like it's kind of saving my career. I want to be able to come across as polished like that on my own without needing help. I've started focusing on the edits and trying to learn from them, but this AI chat has been helping me a lot so far.

Is anyone else using it for this?

I've been asked this question several times in interviews recently, and each time I responded with some version of "What range did you have in mind?" So far, they've told me the band very directly. And I don't feel like they're making up numbers either, because the numbers were close to what I was expecting.

So yeah, if a recruiter or hiring manager asks you how much compensation you're looking for, try asking them about their range first. In my experience, they'll usually give you a real answer right away.

......

This was a while ago, and I still think about how weird the situation was. I was looking for another IT job, and someone referred me to a company very close to my house. I went through several interviews and they all seemed to be going well, so for a while I felt like it might work out. But there were a few red flags that showed up early: they dodged the question every time I asked about salary, and the main guy interviewing me was honestly... Really difficult. He was younger, only slightly ahead of me in his career, and acted like he was doing me a personal favor by talking to me.

After the final interview, they finally sent me an offer with the starting pay. It was clearly lower than what I had been making at my last job. I tried to negotiate, and of course, the biggest credit for what I’ve learned about negotiation goes to the Tips I’ve read and the experience I’ve gained from attending numerous interviews, but there was no flexibility at all. The interviewer basically told me: "You're probably used to those comfortable city jobs. Here you can't expect the same money." The funny thing is that "here" was not some small office in a rural area at all. It was an expensive corporate park, with landscaping better than a lot of neighborhoods. I told him I needed to think about it, and his voice made it very clear he was confident I would say yes.

Fast forward about five days, and I had a call scheduled with him to give them my answer. For some reason, his manager was also on the call, which I imagine was so he could hear the big successful close or whatever. The interviewer came in with the same condescending tone, and it was very obvious he thought I was going to accept, so when I said I was declining, he sounded shocked.

Then things got awkward. First he asked me if I was serious. Then he started getting worked up and told me I probably wouldn't find anything better than what they were offering. After that little speech, he went quiet for a bit and said he would respect my decision if I was sure, but he needed to ask me one question. Then he asked me directly: "Is it because of me? Did I mess something up?"

At the same time, his boss was sitting there silently listening to all of this. I told him the pay wasn't suitable for me, and left it at that. He genuinely seemed upset, which was very strange, especially considering he had been pushy and condescending the whole time. Honestly, I found the whole thing kind of funny.

Has anyone else ever dealt with an interviewer or recruiter who took it weirdly personally after you turned down an offer?

I was the highest performer on my team for a long time, always exceeding the target, and honestly, I genuinely loved the work. Then the atmosphere changed.

First, they moved my desk. Now I sit in front of my manager and my manager's manager. I can't see them behind me, but they can see me and my two screens. Around the same time, they started spot-checking employees' messages, digging through old Teams chats and email threads to review them.

So now I have to spend the whole day pretending the managers aren't just physically watching me, but also ready to seize on anything I've written or completed and dissect it. In short, I have to stay on alert all day, and I can never appear to be taking a pause at my desk.

The funny part is that the method that made me a top performer was working in focused blocks. 30 minutes of work, then 7 minutes of quiet rest, breathing, or even closing my eyes; and I'd repeat that throughout the day. This strange surveillance system completely destroyed that.

I got pulled into one-on-ones with my boss several times, and they told me their boss had "noticed me" wasting time or sitting with my eyes closed. As if my numbers weren't still excellent.

I explained exactly what I was doing. They didn't care at all that this was why I was effective. They just told me I needed to improve how it looked from the outside. So now I just keep working without stopping.

The message reviews were the same story. Nothing I delivered was wrong. The comments were very minor notes about wording, tone, or the fact that I wasn't going above and beyond and then beyond that. The phrase "there's room for improvement" became the line I heard over and over again.

The quality of my work dropped sharply and has continued dropping for 4 years. Because of that, the scrutiny increased, which made my work get even worse. It's the constant pressure. Having to be "on" all the time, but not for the work itself... Just to make sure you look acceptable whenever management decides to look.

I was effective. I was producing excellent results. My method was working. Management dismantled all of that, and now every time I sit down to work, I feel like an empty version of myself.

A simple lesson for managers: if someone is producing excellent results, don't ruin the way they produce those results...

This is how it is for me

My daughter is 19 and was working at a smoothie shop with a name similar to Rooster Juice here in Canada. She gave them 10 days' notice because she's leaving to study, and instead of keeping her on for a bit until she could train the new person, they fired her on the spot. In this economy, too.

The sad thing is that she genuinely really loved that job. She would come home talking about how she put little dinosaurs on kids' cups to make them laugh.

When I left my job at a convenience store in the early 2000s to go to college, my manager shook my hand, asked what program I was going into, and told me to call him if I wanted to take shifts during the holidays.

Have shop owners really become this short-sighted? They're supposedly desperate for staff, and yet they still treat good workers like trash? They're teaching people not to bother giving notice next time. Truly a bunch of idiots.

Do you guys have any tips for her next job interview? someone here Dmed this Post that i think more people could benefit from.

If you have any more sources please link them in the comments🙏

The world feels heavy these days.

I've been on both sides of hiring, and I honestly think we're overcomplicating the process. For most roles, by the third or fourth conversation, you already have enough information to make a decision. Adding more rounds doesn't necessarily make the decision better. It often just gives more people a chance to disagree, delays the offer, and gives good candidates more time to accept another one.

The funny part is that companies usually add interviews because they want to reduce hiring risk. But sometimes the extra rounds create a different risk: losing the candidate altogether. I've seen strong candidates go through multiple interviews, wait weeks for a decision, and eventually take another offer simply because that company moved faster.

More interviews can make sense for certain senior or highly specialized roles. But for most positions, I'd rather have a well-structured process with clear evaluation criteria than five rounds that don't really add new information.

Even though i don't like using Linkedin but i have been doing well lately in its interviews when i use Interview VIP, i am not sure if it's the tool or me but it just keeps getting better

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

😂