I mean isn't this all the game is about honestly? A little lie never hurt nobody, especially when its a bloodbath out there just for a single opportunity. I even put extra efforts in tailoring my resume for each job lol.
I've been a stay-at-home mom for about 6 years. Before having kids, I worked at one place for 8 years, and that's pretty much all my work experience.
My problem is that I don't have anyone to watch the kids, so whatever I do must be from home and have flexible hours so I can manage my life around my three children.
Honestly, I feel like I've lost myself a bit and I need to do something just for me, you know what I mean? It's time I focus on self-development for a change.
And just to be clear from the start, please no OnlyFans suggestions. This body built 3 human beings, and those are the only fans I care about, hahaha.
Everything is sky-high expensive, and I'm barely scraping by, and I suddenly realized I can't stand this job for another day. My manager wants to 'talk' tomorrow, and we all know what that means. So, welcome to the new life plan: living in my Civic with my dog and cat.
But seriously, what is someone supposed to do after spending 18 years in the same field? I'm in my late 40s and I just hit the self-destruct button on my entire life.
I'm still trying to process what happened today.
Anyway, last February, the company announced this 'organizational realignment' thing. Classic corporate talk. I wasn't in the first round of departures, but I felt the general vibe had changed. Instead of worrying and stressing, I decided to get my affairs in order and prepare myself. If nothing happened, I would have just wasted a few nights. And if it did, I'd be ready.
I really took it seriously. I made a simple spreadsheet to track everything and used a tool called Teal to organize my applications. I was tailoring my CV for every job I applied to because I know from past experience that sending one generic CV everywhere doesn't get results. I even had a recruiter friend look at my LinkedIn, and guys, it was a shock to see how many basic things I was missing in my field.
Anyway, throughout April and May, I was applying for jobs after work. I got a few interviews and got rejected from a few. Then, about two weeks ago, I got an offer. With a higher title, a 25% salary increase, and a genuinely cool-looking team. I signed the contracts last week and was about to submit my resignation this morning.
No joke, I was literally writing the 'I'm writing to inform you of my resignation' email when I suddenly got a calendar invite from my manager's manager. The title: 'Quick Chat.' And the meeting duration was only 15 minutes.
We all know what that means. The layoff call. But here's the kicker: they offered me 6 months of severance. Full salary, and they'll pay for my health insurance until September.
So my current situation is: I'll be getting 6 months of severance pay from my old job, and I have a new, better-paying job starting in a month. This means I get a month of paid vacation, and technically I'll be collecting two salaries at the same time. This feels unreal.
Seriously, if you're at a job and you have a weird feeling or don't feel secure, listen to that feeling. Don't wait. Start looking around and get your documents in order. You never know what might happen.
It's very strange that I see so many talented and skilled people just... Sitting comfortably. Waiting for their manager to give them a promotion, or for HR to create the perfect training course for them. But the people who truly succeed are not the ones who wait for their turn in line.
Seriously, most people think more about what to watch on TV tonight than about what skill they should learn this month. They wait for their annual performance review to get feedback, and then they're surprised when they find themselves in the exact same place a year later.
The people who get ahead are the ones who have decided that their development is their own responsibility. They listen to podcasts about their field on their way to work. They try out new software on a Tuesday night just out of curiosity. They don't need their manager's permission to get better.
The gap between the job you have and the job you want only shrinks when you take the wheel yourself. Not next quarter. Not after this big project is finished. Right now.
Only 3 days left of my 10-day notice. I'm counting down the hours by the minute until I'm finally out of this place.
I was doing scheduling and data management at a small service company with about 8 employees. It's a highly specialized and government-regulated field, so it's extremely profitable. For the owner, of course. He's living it up in a 7,000 sq ft house while paying us pennies. His lead tech, the guy who practically carries the entire operation, makes less than a fast-food drive-thru worker. It's insane.
In my six weeks here, he'd blame me for his mistakes and threaten to dock my pay for them. I've heard him pull the same stunts on others. He even tried to strong-arm them into helping him move from one mansion to an even bigger one over a weekend, for $8 less than their normal hourly wage. He gave them 36 hours' notice and threatened to fire them if they refused. He was apparently about to be sued for not vacating his old place on time.
I spoke with former employees who said he sued them when they left, and my current colleagues confirmed it. I found the new hire packet he was preparing for the college kids he thinks can replace us. It has some real gems in it, like a clause stating that if you lose safety glasses ($10) or ear protection ($12), he will file a police report for theft against you and dock your pay $75 for each. Lose your keys? That's another police report and a $250 'fine'.
So, over my last 10 days, I've been quietly sharing all of this with my colleagues. I told them about his stunts, showed them easily accessible training programs, and pointed them toward several much higher-paying jobs. The result? I've convinced the three most critical technicians to walk out with me. This will completely gut the company. He'll have to default on all his major contracts, which will likely bury him in lawsuits. He signed those contracts knowing our techs were already working 14-hour days just to barely keep up. Frankly, he deserves everything that's coming to him.
My wife started a new job about 4 months ago. The industry she was in before was a bit shaky and the hours were being reduced, so she started looking for something more stable.
She did a few interviews for an admin role. When they sent her the offer, she discovered that things like pension contributions and health insurance were included in the advertised salary, so the net pay she ultimately received was a surprise, and not a pleasant one at all.
The agreement was for a part-time position, 4 days a week, on the understanding that she could work extra hours here and there to help with holidays or during busy periods.
Honestly, she has hated this job from day one. We kept saying it was just new-job anxiety, but it's clear now that the place is just not a good fit for her. The good thing is that we're fortunate that she doesn't have to work if she doesn't want to, which is a huge relief.
The culture there is terrible. They have zero tolerance for mistakes, even if someone is new. About a month into her job, they gave her a formal warning for using the wrong internal form for a specific request, even though it didn't cause any problems. On top of that, the phones don't stop ringing from 10 AM to 3 PM, and it's nearly impossible to get a proper lunch break.
Her manager took her aside and told her, not asked her, that she would be working full-time to cover the upcoming maternity leave. He then reminded her that she was still on probation - which was a clear threat - and said that she had agreed to work extra hours 'when needed.' Covering a year-long leave is definitely not what 'when needed' means. On top of all that, the manager claimed he couldn't get budget approval to hire a temp, and tried to make her feel like it was her problem to solve.
Anyway, a short while ago, her colleague at work told her she was pregnant and would be starting her maternity leave in November. Here in Ireland, most people take at least 8 months of leave, and many go beyond a year.
So yeah, she's handing in her notice tomorrow morning. They treated her like crap, the place is disorganized, chaotic, and understaffed, and she was completely miserable.
Honestly, I think her manager had no idea that my wife doesn't need this job. He just assumed she'd be afraid of getting fired and would rearrange our entire family life to suit their needs. His calculations were completely wrong.
I'm an intern at a company; my job is basically help at the front desk. I'm the longest-serving intern here as I've been around for about 10 months.
My 10-month contract is ending, and I've already informed them that I won't be renewing. The problem is that at the same time, the other four interns in the same role are also leaving, and three of them are new. This is also after the three who were in these positions before them quit long before their contracts ended.
My manager is literally going crazy and won't stop complaining that she has lost seven interns in less than a year. She keeps saying that we are throwing away a great opportunity and don't appreciate the chance she gave us.
Now she's targeting me, telling me I can't do this to her, and that the least I could do is stay an extra month to train the new people. Honestly, this is really bothering me and making my last few weeks here very awkward. How am I supposed to handle this professionally? Should I just put up with it and ignore her? Or is there a polite way to tell her to back off?
LinkedIn is 99% nonsense and big corporate talk, so that's why it's really awesome when you find someone who exposes this hypocrisy and tells it like it is.
Hey everyone, my manager pulled me into a meeting today about my working hours, and honestly, I'm a bit shocked. He pointed out that I take a 50-minute lunch, whereas the 'standard' is 30 minutes.
I'm a data analyst, and our policy is very flexible: as long as you complete your 8 hours, arrival and departure times don't really matter. I usually get in at 8 AM and leave at 4:30 PM, which means I'm on-site for 8 and a half hours. My 50-minute lunch means I technically work 7 hours and 40 minutes, which is 20 minutes short of the full 8 hours.
The thing is, I finish all my projects well before their deadlines. I often ask for more work in the afternoon because I've completed all my tasks. Most of the team takes a full hour for lunch, but I prefer to eat and come right back so I can leave a little early. Why should I sit at my desk if my work is finished?
I'm pretty sure I know who complained. There's a colleague who has been here for years and always struggles with the new reporting software. It seems he's annoyed that I manage to finish my tasks and leave on time, while he often has to stay late. I feel this isn't really about the 20 minutes but more about him being resentful.
I'm a salaried employee, and the company gets my full output and more, and I don't get paid for any overtime. So when I finish my work, I see no logic in sitting at my desk pretending to be busy. My manager wants to 'talk again' about this tomorrow. How can I explain my perspective without sounding lazy or full of myself? This is all just unnecessary, petty office drama.
Actually, while I was scrolling on reddit, I read some helpful tips on this post, it'll help not only in interviews but in any meeting in general, will try to use them tomorrow with my manager, will update you
I used interview coder for my amazon sde2 loop last week and I accepted the offer yesterday, base plus sign on plus rsu comes out to just over 190k total comp first year. before anyone tells me I'm ruining the industry or whatever, I don't care because I still did a lot of work and just needed that extra help, and I believe if you don't use all the ressources available you can than you're stupid.
I have 3 yoe at a mid sized fintech, decent engineer, but I am terrible at live coding interviews. I always lose my train of thought when someone is watching me type code, like I forget how a hash map works and stuff. I had already bombed meta and stripe earlier this year on questions I could easily solve in my own ide with no one watching, so when amazon came up I search for tools to help me cause I was defintely not wasting another loop.
Seen this sub a couple times and finally just bought the subscription the weekend before my loop (did the monthly one with the discount code from this sub). And the setup was stupid simple so I decided to use it, tried it in some calls with my friends to make sure that in the interview it wouldn't show. And it work, my interviewer saw exactly what I wanted them to see.
The two coding rounds were a graph problem and a variant of lru cache with a twist. I used interview coder during both of them, mostly to glance at the approach when I was mid thinking, and it helped me stay on track when I would normally start second guessing myself. I still talked through the approach, wrote the code myself, handled the follow up questions and complexity and edge cases. on the system design round I used it to sanity check my api contract before I committed to it on the whiteboard, which was also useful because I could see the tradeoffs laid out while I was explaining them.
the behavioral rounds I prepped normally with star stories and leadership principles.
amazon is running interview loops where they ask you to solve algorithmic puzzles that have almost nothing to do with the infrastructure work you are actually going to do on day one, and they are also internally pushing their own engineers to use copilot and q developer for every pr they ship. the idea that using ai assistance in the interview is some moral line while using it every day on the job is fine just does not hold up for me anymore. if companies want to test raw problem solving they can bring back in person whiteboards, until then the rules of the game are whatever gets you through the door.
if you have a loop coming up, interview coder definetly helped me, so would reccomend. just try the monthly subscription for your loop and see how it goes, thats what I did and I manageed to get the offer.
happy to answer questions about the amazon loop specifically or the setup.
not even 30 old man can pay 1k rent these days
edit : if there any parent want to try this you should first tell them that work life is far diffrent than how shows and movies portray it and let them got some training and of course let them check this reddit r\interviewVip have so many wonderful tips about interview and u can let them use Ai in interviews like Interview man this one is truly magical u can just connect it to the virtual interview and it will bring perfect professional answers this one is probably a dark horse in every fresh graduate career life
My work hours are flexible, so I'm usually online between 6 and 9 AM to start my 8.5-hour day. My manager, who seems to start work around 5 AM, calls me on the phone within minutes of my status turning green. Every day. And the call is always, "Hey, I noticed you were online, so I thought we could have a quick chat about so-and-so."
Honestly, it's gotten to the point where I hesitate to even log in. I don't get a chance to settle in, check my calendar, or read my emails. On Mondays, he jumps right in and asks me about emails from Friday night, wanting my opinion on them before I've even opened Outlook. I'm salaried, but I'm very firm about not working nights or weekends unless it's a real emergency.
So, what's the solution? How can I professionally ask for just 15 to 30 minutes of quiet to get settled before he calls me? Or better yet, how do I encourage him to use Teams chat sometimes instead of calling me about everything?
Anyway, I submitted my resignation today. My contract had a one-month notice period, but I offered them three months to try and make the handover process as smooth as possible for everyone.
Within an hour, they had locked my email and system access. My manager called me into a meeting with HR, and they told me today was my last day. Before I left, they made me sign a new paper changing my notice period to just the one month required in the contract.
I was so confused and caught off guard that I just signed it. I didn't fully realize what they had done until I was driving home. They manipulated me into changing the notice period so they wouldn't have to pay me for the other two months. This way, they didn't need to fire me or even pay end-of-service benefits.
It was a harsh lesson learned. Never give more notice than what's written in your contract. Always assume your last day is the day you submit your resignation. HR's only job is to protect the company's interests, and they will gladly do so at your expense. It's a dirty game, and frankly, I'm glad to be out of it.
But weirdly enough, that whole experience turned out to be a blessing. Since I already had another offer lined up, Once I went home, I emailed the hr to schedule an interview. But before that, I practised a lot; how to talk about my experience, practiced answering tough questions through Gemini. In the interview itself, I decided to use InterviewMan and it really helped me structure my answers in a way that sounds confident and professional without feeling fake.
So while they thought they were putting me in a difficult position, they actually gave me a clean exit and the time to walk into my next role fully prepared.
I just received a rejection email that made me die laughing. I had applied for a job about three weeks ago. Just imagine..
The job was a carbon copy of my current one. The job description was so similar that I barely had to edit anything in my CV. They had classified this job as entry-level, which is honestly laughable, but okay. They were asking for 4 to 6 years of experience, and I have 12. They wanted a bachelor's degree in a related field, which I have. They also wanted a master's in Instructional Tech, Adult Learning, or a similar educational field. I have the Instructional Tech one. Even the salary they listed was very suitable for me.
The email says they decided to proceed with other candidates because I don't have enough practical experience and my educational background isn't suitable. This tells me one of two things:
First, that this was a ghost job posted only as a legal formality, and they had already hired someone from within the company. This is the most logical scenario.
Second, that they literally didn't even glance at my CV or application. I mean, my master's degree is clearly written at the top of my CV and on LinkedIn. And my last two jobs required this exact same degree. So for them to say I don't have the required educational qualification is just plain wrong and proves that this rejection email is just a ready-made template they send out.
I'm really surprised by companies that complain they can't find employees while pulling stunts like this. They're so disorganized they can't even send a rejection email that makes sense. And the crazy part is this wasn't an automated system email; it came from the hiring manager himself. Truly unbelievable.
At this point, I’ve realized something: it’s not just about having the right experience anymore, it’s about how you present it and how you handle the process once you actually get in front of them. If they're using ai to filter cvs, we should use it too! will update my cv via tools like gemini or chatgpt, and for my upcoming interviews, I’m planning to approach things differently and use tools like InterviewMan to structure my answers better, highlight my experience properly.
My friend has been super frustrated with his job search. He left his job at the end of February when his company went through some changes, and it's been a real grind. He was sending out about 15-25 applications a day and had gotten absolutely nothing back for the last six weeks.
So last week, he gets another rejection email, one of those automated-looking ones. The usual, "Thanks for your interest, but we've decided to move forward with other candidates..." He was about to just delete it and move on, but he noticed it wasn't from a 'no-reply' address, but from an actual person on their recruiting team.
So he decided to reply, figuring he had nothing to lose. He kept it brief and professional, something like:
"I appreciate you getting back to me. I'm disappointed it didn't work out this time, but I'm a big admirer of what you do. If any other roles open up that might be a better fit, please keep me in mind."
And this morning, he got a reply from that same recruiter. For real.
"Hi [Friend's Name], thanks for your email. Funny you should say that, because I just had a similar role on another team come across my desk. Would you be open to a quick chat early next week?"
My friend couldn't believe it. He had completely written this company off. And now he has an interview scheduled for Monday morning.
Just wanted to share. It just goes to show that being a decent human being can pay off. Weird.
update : he was kind of anxious for interview thats why before I reccommend for him to install interviewman on his laptop and connect it with the zoom meeting and see the magic of fast answers perfect ones for interviews It is kind of ali baba treasure especially for fresh graduates and those who got blank mind from anxiety his interview is soon wish him luck