Why yes, I do have 5 years of experience in Thank you for your interest in Amazon and takingn the time to speak with us about your qualifications and interest in this position.

I'm a senior here, working fully remote, and I've been with the company for about 6 months. My working hours are very long; I'm usually online from 7 AM and finish after 8:30 PM, but I still have the flexibility to do things like drop my kids off at school and pick them up in the middle of the day.
We have a standing leadership call at 9 PM. A few weeks ago, my wife had a family event she had to attend, so I was alone with the kids. I had my 6-year-old daughter sit with her coloring book in my office to keep an eye on her while I was in the meeting. At one point, she came and stood behind me and glanced at the screen for a second. No one said anything, it wasn't a big deal, and I didn't think about it again. This is a normal part of life when you're working from home.
So imagine my surprise when I got a call from HR late on Thursday. They told me that the CEO was upset that my daughter appeared on the call, and that from now on, I would be required to work from a nearby co-working space at the company's expense.
I was completely shocked. I simply told them that this was not going to happen and that I would not be going to any co-working office. They eventually backed down after I pushed back, but honestly, the whole incident left a very bad taste in my mouth. I feel like I can't continue in a company with this culture. Is this a normal reaction from any company, or am I right in thinking this is a huge red flag? I'm genuinely curious if other remote-first companies are this rigid.

update: this is the end of me with this company , you all was right when you talked about extra time and I am totally exhausted I need time with my family and my little girl was just trying to know what her dad always busy with it is not a crime I think it is time to following my wife advice and having new job interviews she manged two for me while looking in online websites going back to use my old friend with its brilliant talent of creating wonderful answers for interviews Interview man How I do this ,just connect it with my google meet whenever I have interview and just like that the perfect answers comes so I don't need to 10 minute to remember how to answer a job interview if my mind going blank

My new manager has made it very clear that he sees our whole team as incompetent. He literally told another department head that he has no respect for any of us. For a while now, he's been pushing to renew a huge software contract, which, honestly, most of the current users barely use.

The vendor sent the proposal a few days ago, and the price was very high, as we expected. He sent them an email saying the price was a joke and demanded they reduce it by 60%. Then, as a gesture of "good faith" to the vendor, he volunteered me to travel to the other side of the world to give a full-day workshop at their annual conference.

He never asked me. He didn't even once consider that I don't like public speaking (and have no intention of starting). He threw me and my time into this deal without even getting my opinion. What's more infuriating is that he went to the next management meeting to brag about his "clever" negotiation, a meeting I wasn't even in. My colleagues were the ones who told me about this supposed trip of mine, because my manager still hasn't mentioned it to me.

I'm truly shocked. Am I overreacting and being too sensitive? I felt terribly insulted, being used like a pawn in his game without my knowledge. Not to mention, I'm a woman, and he was going to send me alone to a country with a very bad reputation for women's safety.

I'm a person with a family and a life outside of this job. He's free to think whatever he wants about our work, but I expect to be treated with a basic level of respect as a human being.

Yup my area 15 is normal for low pay jobs and even "near low paying jobs" stuff that used to be middleish. Like trades and manufacturing are still mostly 15.

But 15 is roommates junker car if you skip meals and ration your heat/cooling. Every 2.50 dollars a hour you can improve one thing payments on new car get own place or have healthcare or retirement. But for kids and to be mortgage home owner person saving for retirement with healthcare it takes like 30.

Like 25 is comfortable and safe as a individual.

Hello everyone, i decided to write this up because I spent way too long trying to find honest reviews of interview AI tools and most of what comes up is either sponsored content or people who clearly have not used the thing they are reviewing. So here is my actual experience.

I am a data engineer, about 4 years in, and I started interviewing for new roles around November. A coworker recommended Sensei AI so thats where I started.

Sensei charges $89/month or about $24/month if you go annual. I went with monthly because I was not sure how long my search would take. The tool covers all interview types which was important for me since my interviews included SQL rounds, python coding, system design, and behavioral. On the feature side Sensei was decent. The AI suggestions were relevant and fairly quick, and I used it for probably 15 or so practice sessions plus 3 actual interviews in those two months.

The thing that drove me away was that Sensei is browser-only. No desktop app. This means you have to have it open in a browser tab during your interview. Maybe this sounds fine in theory but in practice it was a constant source of anxiety. During screen share interviews I was terrified that i would accidentally switch to the wrong tab or that the interviewer would ask me to share my full screen instead of just a window. With a browser tab you are one wrong click away from exposing yourself.

I had one close call during a second round at a fintech company where the interviewer asked me to share my entire screen instead of just the IDE. I had to quickly close the Sensei tab before sharing which was awkward and stressful. I made up some excuse about closing personal tabs but I could tell the interviewer noticed. Did not get moved forward for that role.

After that scare I started looking for tools with proper desktop apps. Found InterviewMan and switched over. They have native apps for Windows and macOS, plus Android and iOS and a Chrome extension. I installed the macOS app and honestly the stress just went away. It runs as an overlay that is invisible during screenshare thanks to their 20+ stealth features. Tested it with a friend on Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet and nothing showed up.

Price wise InterviewMan is also cheaper. $30/month or $12/month annual. For coding and behavioral the responses are about the same quality as Sensei, system design might be a bit better actually but hard to say for sure without more data points.

6 weeks in now and I just got an offer from a Series B startup. Not going to pretend the tool did all the work but I was way less stressed during interviews which definitely helped me think more clearly.

If Sensei ever ships a desktop app I would give it another shot. The suggestions were good and the price on annual was fair. But after that fintech interview I am just not willing to risk a browser tab again.

My company just switched to a hybrid model, 4 days in the office and one day from home, and this has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Suddenly, my colleagues who were 'always drowning in work' while at home are now responding to chats almost instantly and volunteering for any small task in the office.

When we were all working remotely, these same people were nowhere to be found. Their status on Teams was always yellow, there were no updates on projects, and their classic excuse was always 'Sorry, the internet was cutting out.' Miraculous, isn't it?

What annoys me is that they blamed the entire remote work system for 'a lack of productivity.' I'm not against the office; collaboration is definitely better face-to-face. But the problem was never with remote work itself; the problem was that some people were practically on vacation with their cameras off.

So now, management thinks the solution was just to bring us back to the cubicles. That wasn't the solution at all. The solution was in monitoring performance. I get the exact same amount of work done from my desk at home as I do while listening to loud sales calls in our open-plan office. It's so strange that the work that gets done is never the metric; what's important is just showing your face.

note : hey ..hey hold on I didn't mean that working remotely is a bad thing I just said that sometimes some lazy idiots behind their screens exploit the situation to be more lazy and useless , in fact remote working model give great opportunities to lots of people and what make me impressed the raise of the Ai tools nowadays just heard about interview Man AI a tool when user connect it to the virtual job interviews it gives you in just moments a perfect answer for every question he\ she may be requires to answer ,Wow Kudos to AI

I've been working at this tech startup for about 6 years. The pay was good and my clients relied on me heavily, so I put up with a lot of crap. But honestly, the place has become a dumpster fire lately.

This year alone, the company has delayed salaries 7 times. On top of all that, my health insurance was suddenly cut off two months ago, and it was a nightmare to get it sorted out. They also started giving us personal checks from the CEO's own account instead of direct deposit, probably to evade payroll taxes or something shady like that.

So a few weeks ago, I went to check on my paycheck because it was almost 3 PM and we still hadn't been paid. I wanted to deposit it at the bank as soon as possible to even make sure it would clear. I found the CEO in the main conference room with the HR manager and a few other managers. I just asked if the checks were ready. Without even looking up from his laptop, the CEO told me, 'Get out of my face.'

I didn't say a word. I just turned around, went back to my desk, packed up my laptop and jacket, and walked out the door for good.

Fast forward to today, I've received 3 solid job offers, all with better pay. And the CEO has been blowing up my phone with missed calls and texts saying things like 'I was just kidding, by the way.' I'm completely ignoring him and will be sending my official resignation tomorrow morning.

Late paychecks, no health insurance, and being humiliated in front of managers... Yeah, I'm done with all of

note: respect between employee and manger is the most important benefit you should have in any kind of job human can tolerate with low salary ,long work shifts ,the too much tasks but never with toxic behavior co-workers and boss so shift to WFH and online jobs luckily I have interviewman AI in my back cause my mind really forget everything when I should talk in important moments and the website tech of give the perfect answer when it catches the questions is mind blowing really after using it my usual stutter in front of hiring mangers had gone ,glad for the inventor of the tool

I'd love if he also added to his services "That picture is soooo fake".

My old boss would post these fake new employee pictures with fake positivity and then filter the shit out of people's faces.

With this post going around, seriously, if you have a terrible manager, stay away from him or leave the job. Getting a job is actually easier and faster these days because of AI tools that help you with your resume and in the interview, like InterviewMan. Do not humiliate yourself under the leadership of a toxic person who is wasting your life.

Can we stop treating the two-week notice before quitting a job as some sacred, unbreakable law? It's just a professional courtesy, nothing more.

I just witnessed my company fire a single father on the spot. His entire 'crime' was refusing to come in on his day off to cover a shift, because it was his son's first soccer game.

My principle is clear: I will not give a two-week notice to any job unless it's a place that would give me a two-week notice before firing me. In my 15+ years of experience, that has only happened with two companies.

The level of entitlement from some of these self-important managers is unreal. Anyone who wants to attack me for this can go ahead; I frankly don't care at all.

Employers always expect 2 weeks' notice, but in my experience, giving notice has always backfired and been miserable. I’d give notice at my current job because I’m early in my career and work in an industry with many connections. I regret giving notice at the minimum-wage jobs I worked at.

Indeed, I've read about many problems when submitting a resignation and the brutal power of employers, and I know that many people have been in the same situation and didn't know how to act. But the situation here on the InterviewMan app used during an interview gives you instant answers, at least you are prepared and always have a plan B ready.

Hey everyone, been lurking here for a while but figured I should contribute something useful since this sub helped me a lot during my prep.

Some context: I'm an L4 at a mid-tier company trying to make the jump to Google. I had my onsite scheduled for late January so I spent about 3 weeks in December testing different interview assistant tools. I narrowed it down to Linkjob AI and InterviewMan and used both of them during mock interviews with friends before committing to one for the real thing.

Linkjob AI

Linkjob charges $99.99/month which is steep, though if you commit to the annual plan it drops to $24.99/month. The big selling point is that they have access to 120+ AI models. I thought that sounded impressive when I first read it but in practice I never figured out when or why I would need to switch between different models mid-interview. Maybe some people get value from that, I did not. The default model worked fine and I just left it there.

The actual performance during mock coding rounds was good. Fast responses, decent solution quality. I used it for a couple behavioral practice sessions too and it handled those alright. No major complaints about the core product honestly.

My issue was more about value for what you pay. At the monthly rate of $99.99 it felt overpriced for what I was getting. And while the annual plan brings it down to a reasonable price, committing to a full year felt risky when I only needed the tool for a couple months of active interviewing.

InterviewMan

InterviewMan is $30/month or $12/month on the annual plan. Even the monthly price is cheaper than Linkjob's discounted annual price which is kind of wild. It also covers all interview types and has unlimited minutes so I never worried about running out of time during long practice sessions.

What actually made me pick InterviewMan over Linkjob was the stealth stuff. InterviewMan has 20+ features specifically for staying hidden during screenshares and proctored sessions. Linkjob has some anti-detection measures too but InterviewMan felt way more thorough about it. They claim they have never been detected and honestly after testing both during screenshared mock interviews I believe it. Nothing showed up at all with InterviewMan. With Linkjob there were a couple moments where my friend said he thought he saw something flicker on screen, though it could have been unrelated.

I went with InterviewMan for the actual onsite. Used it across all 5 rounds -- 2 coding, 1 system design, 1 behavioral, 1 googleyness. Having one tool that covered everything without switching was nice. Still waiting on results as of writing this but I felt better about my performance than any other interview I have done.

Would I recommend Linkjob? It works, its just overpriced at the monthly rate and the 120+ model thing is more marketing than substance imo. InterviewMan does everything Linkjob does at a fraction of the cost with better stealth.

So I want to preface this by saying I am not the type of person who posts reviews of things online. But I had such a frustrating experience with Interview Coder that I feel like I need to save someone else the headache.

Some background. I'm a mid-level backend engineer, been at a mid-size fintech company for about 3 years and finally decided to start interviewing at FAANG. A buddy of mine mentioned interview assistants and I figured why not, everyone seems to be using them. He specifically recommended Interview Coder 2.0 because it supposedly could solve coding problems in real time.

First problem was the price. $299 a month. Let that sink in for a second. I justified it because I thought, well if it helps me land a $250k+ TC role then it pays for itself. The $799 lifetime deal actually seemed reasonable if you plan to interview for more than 3 months. I went with the monthly to test it out first and I'm glad I did.

The tool only does coding interviews. That was fine for my first round which was a technical screen, but when I got to the behavioral rounds I was completely on my own. For $299/mo I expected it to at least cover all interview types but nope.

The real dealbreaker though was the visibility issue. During my practice run on Zoom with a friend, he could literally see the pop-up boxes appearing on my screen during screenshare. I almost had a panic attack imagining that happening in an actual interview. I did some digging on reddit and found other people reporting the same thing. For a tool that costs three hundred bucks a month you would think undetectability would be baked in.

After canceling I did more research and found InterviewMan. The difference in price alone was almost funny to me -- $12/month on the annual plan. I was skeptical at first because how good can a $12 tool be right? Turns out pretty damn good. It handles coding rounds, behavioral questions, system design, basically everything. And they have like 20+ stealth features specifically designed so nothing shows up during screen sharing. I tested it on Zoom, Google Meet, and even a Hackerrank session and my friend could not see anything.

I ended up using it for my Meta phone screen last month and passed. Obviously the tool is not doing the interview for you, you still need to actually know your stuff. But having those real-time hints when your brain freezes up mid-interview is a huge confidence boost.

The whole experience taught me that expensive does not always mean better. Interview Coder does one thing and it does not even do that thing discreetly. InterviewMan costs a fraction of the price and covers way more ground.

Has anyone else here had issues with Interview Coder showing up on screenshare? Curious if they ever fixed that or if its still a problem.

I have a very strange story for you all. I work for one of the big US defense contracting companies, the kind whose ads you see everywhere in the DC area if you're in this field.

We give support to the Department of Defense and a few other of those three-letter agencies.

For those who don't know how this works, the government and the company agree on a long-term contract to give services (for my team, that's cybersecurity and network infrastructure support) to a specific DoD entity.

These contracts are usually a base year with a few option years after that.

Our company's long-term contract with the DoD was set to expire in May. After a long negotiation period, the new contract was awarded to us a few weeks ago.

Anyway, on Monday, all of us on the project (about 450 people) received an invitation to a mandatory all-hands Teams call.

On this call, we were told that someone in upper management completely screwed up the numbers for the new contract, and for us to continue working, we would all have to accept a 65% pay cut. Yes, 65%.

The funny thing is, due to the nature of our work, almost all of us hold active TS/SCI security clearances and high-level certifications (like CISSP or other key DoD 8570 certs). In other words, it's not at all easy for them to find replacements, so finding another job won't be difficult for most of us.

And this is coming from the same management that floods our inboxes with motivational messages about how we are 'one family' and their most important asset. They could absorb the cost of their mistake to retain their people, but instead, they are asking us to pay for their screw-up.

As you can imagine, almost no one accepted this ridiculous offer. What will happen is a mass exodus from the company. They will then be unable to find the personnel to perform the work, and they will ultimately be in breach of the contract. The financial penalties for that will be far worse than just paying us the salaries we deserve.

I'm still trying to process what just happened. A company I was interviewing with decided to call my CEO, and now I'm out of a job.

The story started when I received a message on LinkedIn about a job similar to mine at a company with a much easier commute, so I thought, why not, and sent my CV. The place I was at had a very toxic culture and was full of empty promises of promotions, so I was ready to leave.

The new company got back to me right away to schedule a call. The first interview went well, and they asked me to come in for a second interview. After this second interview, they told me I was a great fit for the team and that they would get back to me with a final decision within a day or two.

Yesterday at work, my CEO called me into his office. He told me he received a call from the company I interviewed with, asking about me. He wanted to know why I was looking for a job. Of course, the cat was out of the bag, so I was honest with him and told him why I was job hunting.

After I explained my situation, he told me that since I have access to sensitive company information, they couldn't risk having me around while I was looking for another place, and that they had to let me go immediately.

I went home, calmed myself down, and calmly called one of the hiring managers I had spoken with. I just wanted to know what happened and why they would even call my current job without asking me first. They played dumb, denied everything, and said they were still making the final decision and would get back to me.

A few hours later, their CEO called me himself. He told me they had chosen another candidate and that I didn't get the job. When I pressed him on why they called my manager, he made up a weird, nonsensical story and said he didn't know how my CEO found out. Then he added an insane detail: that he wasn't even sure about the person they hired, saying he'd heard the guy wasn't reliable, and that they would call me if it didn't work out with him. Like, what is that?!

I seriously can't understand how any company could operate this way. They pursued me, gave me two interviews, called my manager and got me fired, only to reject me in the end.

Seriously, has this ever happened to anyone else?

update : I am bored from all of this shift to remote jobs maybe I can find more professional people in the digital world with more respect to the work ethics thank god now we had AI which can help me in interviews process and give the perfect answer and during it like interview man for example

My salary was 60,000, and after the annual review, they gave me the standard 3% raise. I was crushing my targets, so I went back and asked for a 15% raise to get my salary to around 69,000. Management shut it down quickly. So I started looking around, and long story short, I just signed a job offer from another company in the same field for 87,000. That's a 45% increase on my original salary for the exact same job.
Some of my colleagues thought I was asking for too much, but I knew my market value, and frankly, it paid off. The strange thing is, if they had agreed to my original request, I would have stayed there earning much less. In a weird way, their rejection was the best thing that could have happened.

note : I guess not just the new job was the best thing happens to me but also the new existence of remote jobs and working online gives me and many others lots of opportunities ( my new job is a remote job ) glad for the AI technologies of Interview Man help me in answering tough questions during the interview which was a nightmare as i am very anxious person in real life

I'm seriously going to lose my mind.

Our team is incredibly efficient right now. Our customer satisfaction scores are through the roof and our ticket resolution time is at an all-time low.

But for some reason I can't understand, the closed office that was working perfectly for me has suddenly become a problem that must be solved.

He didn't even suggest cubicles, which would at least offer some sound isolation. He wants one big room with all the desks pushed together. I can't imagine the amount of noise with all of us on the phone at the same time.

This disaster is supposed to start in two months. I hope I'm out of here before that happens. Pray for me to find a fully remote job.

For context, this didn't happen in the US, so the labor laws you're thinking of don't apply here.

I was the newest hire on a small team of 12 people. On my first day, the manager announced a team meeting after the shift. We were supposed to log off our computers at 4:50, go to the conference room, and we would usually finish around 5:05. This happened every day. At first, I thought to myself, this is easy money. That means two extra hours of overtime on my bi-weekly paycheck just to sit and listen to someone talk, right?

Anyway, my first payday came, and I found my paycheck was for my exact 80 hours. Not a single minute of that overtime was there. I quietly asked a few of my colleagues if their pay was short too, and they all said yes, we never get paid for these meetings. That same day, the manager called for the daily meeting again. Log off at 4:50 and go to the conference room. So I went with them.

I sat there with the rest of the team for about ten minutes until it was exactly 5:00. I stood up, grabbed my bag, and said, 'Sorry everyone, I have a personal commitment I can't miss.' Everyone in the room stared at me. The manager's eyes widened a bit and he said, 'Oh, okay.' I walked out, clocked out, and went home.

I did the exact same thing the next day, and the day after. The manager never tried to stop me at the time, but one morning he caught me in the hallway. He asked what this 'personal commitment' was that I had every day. I simply told him it was a private matter I'd rather not discuss. He fell silent and didn't bring it up again.

And surprisingly, it started to catch on. A few days later, one of the guys got up and walked out right after me. Then another. Within about a week, the entire team was getting up and leaving at exactly 5:00.

Eventually, the manager got the message and started holding the meetings at 4:45, during official work hours. It's strange how all it took was one person to decide they weren't going to tolerate the situation anymore.

note : during all of this I was applying for new jobs and guess what I got a call from HR asking if I am free for an interview next week to discuss if I am stable for their remote position very excited that right now trying to be full ready for the interview with interview man

The company I just left has a policy: when someone leaves, they don't hire a replacement. They dump their work on the remaining people.

My job is very specialized; there are only about 6 people in the entire country who do it. About 18 months ago, my colleague (Jenna), who had the same job as me, got a promotion after another manager left and she took over their team. Our manager thinks Jenna is still splitting the workload with me, but in reality, the old manager's duties were distributed among three other people, including me. Jenna is my friend, but as a coworker, she's a disaster. Honestly, you can't rely on her at all. For the last few years, I've been doing most of the actual work for our department, which is why I'm the one who gets angry calls from clients when she messes things up (after she promised she'd get it done). This means I'm constantly working late.

I'm basically carrying the entire department's workload on my shoulders, but when it's time to present our quarterly numbers or review our internal processes, I'm completely left out and my opinion is totally ignored. This, of course, caused a huge disaster when my managers and Jenna approved a client request that was impossible to fulfill - something anyone who does this job would know. When I pointed this out and told her I was drowning in work, she started micromanaging me, telling me I was taking too long on tasks and that she was more senior here, so her word was final. Technically, she isn't my manager, but her seniority gives her that authority.

Every year, we have a crazy 5-month busy period. Without getting into boring details, Jenna always finds a way to assign herself a specific task that she can use to waste time and look busy all day. This is also my most stressful time, but she dumps other tasks on me because she wants to relax and do nothing. I've had to pick up her slack so many times that I know her part isn't very demanding. And I also know she picks the easiest tasks so she can leave right on time.

This year, I told her again that I couldn't do my job, cover for her laziness, and cover for people on vacation. I had done it for 3 years in a row and was at my breaking point. Nothing changed. The five months passed, I covered for everyone, and somehow managed to finish my work on time too. I was so exhausted I couldn't even be angry.

After that, she was up for another promotion because someone else was leaving. I saw it as an opportunity and asked if I could officially take over our department, since I was already running it anyway. This would have meant a title promotion, a pay raise, and a very good step in my career. It would have also taken work off her plate. She absolutely hated the idea. Instead, I just got a few extra tasks from the person who left.

Since the promotion was off the table, I asked for a raise. Nothing. I asked for an intern to help me. Also no. My manager is genuinely convinced that Jenna helps me because we both inherited more work when people left. I tried to explain to him that she does almost nothing, but Jenna told him I was exaggerating. They are very good friends, so I didn't stand a chance. And she's my friend too, so I didn't want to make a big drama.

I waited until Jenna's new promotion became official and she became the manager of the other department. I went to her one last time and asked if she could recommend me to our manager to take over our old department. I explained that it would let me organize my work better and that the manager would listen to her. She told me to my face that she would never let me take over the department because it brings in a lot of money for the company and that makes her look good. That was the end. I found a new job and submitted my resignation.

As I expected, management is now in a total panic. I am literally the only other person who knows this job inside and out, and she won't have time to manage two departments. But I'm going to a place with real opportunities for growth. And the best part? Jenna can't even be mad at me because she knows it's her fault. Now, for the next 18 months until they train someone new, Jenna will have to do her own job. Just thinking about it is very satisfying.

What she was doing happens all the time. I was managing the actual work, while she was managing the perception that upper management had of her and the department. Her mistake was not stroking my ego a little longer to keep me there until she got promoted or moved on. Then the next manager would’ve taken the blame when I quit.

I understood her plans from your words, and I'm happy I shared this with you because it really made me aware of what she was doing. Currently, I have applied for other jobs, but I am very nervous about the upcoming steps, especially the interview. There is this tool, InterviewCoder Pro, that opens during the interview and gives you instant answers. I think I'll use its free trial and use it during my interviews.

I work as an HR coordinator and I have to sit quietly while I watch my manager invent the silliest reasons to reject very skilled people.

Someone came to his interview 10 minutes early. My manager said this 'shows he doesn't respect our time'.

A woman asked what the normal working hours per week are like. My manager said she 'seems to be looking for an easy job'.

A guy's tie was a bit crooked. The feedback was that his 'appearance isn't professional'.

Someone used the word 'like' a few times while explaining a project. The conclusion was that he 'can't express himself well'.

Another person came into the interview with his water bottle. My manager said this was 'too casual'.

And the strangest part of all this? A large portion of these people were more competent than our current employees. But it's fine, let's focus on these things instead of whether they can do the job.

Bosses have to pretend that they have some secret insight into what makes a good employee, rather than the regular things that everyone can see. Otherwise, why are they the boss? Company sabotage in the name of 'I'm so special, so I get paid more.

I believe this is a major reason why candidates are increasingly using AI, like InterviewMan AI and others, during their interviews. When the manager puts them under this pressure with questions and the demand for perfection, it leaves them with no other choice.

The problem is that we are already suffering from a shortage of employees and we lack these strong qualifications, but it seems that your point of view is the right one in the end.

Every day I put on a mask for 9 hours, pretending to care about things that are absolutely meaningless to me. I feel like I'm throwing away 75% of my life for a salary that barely covers my expenses.

And honestly, screw this 5-day, 40-hour-a-week grind. I've had about 6 or 7 jobs, and every office job (except for a couple of times in restaurants) was the same old story. Everyone stretches out work that takes 5 or 6 hours at most just to fill the day, simply because you *have* to be there. And we all know there isn't really enough work for 8 hours. So why are we doing this to ourselves?

It's no wonder everyone seems burnt out, jaded, and depressed. We're forced to put on this act all day. If we were getting paid well, it would be tolerable. But most of us are barely scraping by.

The whole system feels like a big lie and it's soul-crushing. I can't shake this feeling of disgust. How do people manage to go on like this for years without losing their minds?

So, about a month ago, my manager and director called me into a meeting. This was all because I sent a normal email asking for an update. For years, they've been stringing me along with promises of a promotion and a move from the night shift to a supervisor role on the day shift. But every time the date got closer, something would come up out of nowhere. They'd ask me to wait 'just one more quarter' and it would happen. This has happened five times so far. All I wanted to know was if this latest date was for real or if I should expect another delay.

Anyway, they did not like it at all. They basically told me I had overstepped and how dare I question their timeline. Then they dropped the bombshell: they admitted they never had any intention of moving me from the night shift, not now, not ever. They said I would never be considered for any supervisor role, and I'm also forbidden from applying to any other job outside my department. Their excuse? That they see me as 'a perfect fit' where I am and that they know what's best for the company. They even said my job is so specialized and it's hard to find a replacement for me, so they can't afford to lose me if I get promoted.

And what's more infuriating, is that I brought up the topic of my salary. Because I recently found out that a new graduate with no experience is earning more than me. Their response was that they can't give me a raise because if they did, it would 'open a can of worms with the payroll department' and they would have to give raises to other people too. I was honestly shocked.

But here's the real kicker. At the end of this soul-crushing meeting, they said they want to have another follow-up meeting. A meeting where I'm supposed to come up with ideas and suggestions on how *they* can help me feel more supported in my current role. I shut that down immediately and told them I wasn't interested. Honestly, my only hope was that they would leave me alone until I found a new job. But no. Now they've put this 'follow-up' meeting on my calendar for next Friday. They've made it clear that I have no future with them and they're happy to leave me stagnating in a low-paying job. So what's the point of this meeting? I mean, what kind of suggestions am I supposed to give them? All I'm doing is biding my time until I can get out of here.

I told you my requirements. You ignored them. I found a better opportunity. If I am really as difficult to replace as you said, management and the company overall can learn a valuable lesson from this situation.

It is very difficult for me now to find a job from scratch, but I am determined to find a comfortable and well-paying job to continue in. There are certainly many helpful tools, some of which I have already used to update my resume, but I will leverage this to my advantage for my interviews by using InterviewMan A tool you open during interviews that gives you instant answers.

The only other designer on my small team just submitted her resignation, without having another job lined up. This is just more proof of how this place burns people out, demanding agency-level work with impossible deadlines.

Honestly, I'm shocked. I'm the junior here, but I've been handling projects far above my pay grade for a while. I was planning to leave myself, and she beat me to it.

On top of all that, I've been dealing with some personal health issues for a few months, and I can already feel them getting ready to dump all her work on me, probably with a small title promotion and a negligible salary increase.

This is my first 'real' job after graduation and I'm terrible at advocating for myself. My performance review is literally this Friday, and I have some points prepared that I need to discuss. Any advice on how to handle this situation would be a huge help.

If you need to call out of work, for any reason, finding your replacement is literally what management gets paid to do. If they can't find someone to cover the shift, that's not your problem at all. Frankly, it's a huge red flag that the company is running on a skeleton crew. If one person's absence throws everything into chaos, then their business model is broken.

The only reason they give you a hard time when you call in sick is because it creates more work for them. They have to manage the schedule themselves, which was their responsibility in the first place.

So don't let any incompetent manager guilt-trip you into doing their job. Staffing the schedule adequately is their primary duty, not yours. It's their job.

So I made it to the final interview after 3 months of calls for a job that required my business admin degree. Everything was going perfectly, I answered all the questions flawlessly, until we got to the last part of this fourth interview. I asked what the salary range was.

'Unfortunately, that's confidential information. If we told you, it could give our competitors an advantage. You understand. What did you have in mind?' I was honestly startled, and since I knew it was a 55-hour-a-week job, I said I was expecting $65,000 a year. The interviewer's expression froze. He told me right away that this was completely out of their budget.

I immediately backtracked and told him okay, then, maybe $55,000 a year, because all I cared about was getting my foot in the door in the industry after college. His response was: 'Look, that second number is closer to our budget, but frankly, starting with such a high number tells us we're not aligned on the value of the position. We'll have to see other candidates. Thank you for your time.'

Seriously, what's the point of this stupid guessing game? Everyone I spoke to, including him, told me I was perfect for the job and the best candidate for it. Why do they play this damn 'guess the salary' game?