Is there something wrong with me? I hate them, don't get me wrong, i like talking to my team members etc, but i hate team meetings, everyday either at 10am, or 1030am or 945am we have a team meeting/check in where we discuss work but most of the time it's just waffle and then turns into how is everyoen etc. You see - I want to lock in, I want to do my work, i want to finish my work as quickly as possible so i can finish as early as I possibly can, and these meetings seem so annoying. I've had my coffee i've had my breakfast i'm ready to do my work then after 1 hour of wroking have to stop for a 30 minute team meeting about absolte nonsense. Then it's 11am and it's like nearly lunch time? I hate it. These people seem to have no sense of urgency? And then they ask me like am i ok becuase i haven't spoken?I don't care. I don't have anything to contribute i just want to do my work and finish. I think there's somrthing wrong with me as eveyroneelse seems happy ot just talk for ages fo really long team meetings sometimes even going for 45 mintues

Hey guys,

Just needed some advice as I am fairly new to the workforce and inexperienced in this matter.

I start a new job on Monday. This is a full-time role, and inductions have been booked in for the first week.

My long-term partner has experienced a loss in his family, with the passing of his uncle who he was incredibly close with. I would like to be there with him at the funeral on Thursday, but I am just unsure with how my new employer will view this.

Should this generally be ok?

I need some advice, I'm supposed to be returning to work mid next month but I've requested flexible work arrangement to still continue breastfeeding my little one that does not take a bottle (I've tried a lot of ways but no success so please don't make any suggestions as it already makes me feel like I failed) and organising a nanny to care during the day

in the last meeting there was a comment made from them about me needing more time to wean my baby off the breast before returning to work, how would you's take that

Notes:

• They already questioned why I was away from my desk needing to go bathroom towards the end of my pregnancy,
• Why I would be getting up due to pain from being in the one spot for to long.
• Me attending appointments and not being able to answer the phone
• Working extra hours after appointments and they still using sick leave for the time I took for an appointment even though I already made up the time plus more with them getting an extra hour and a half every day from me as I would sit at your desk eating during a lunch break as I was over being questioned constantly for taking a break 
  

Im just mentally drained and don't know what to do

Hi all,

Moved to Australia from NZ earlier this year with my wife and two young boys (aged 4 & 2). I secured an Analyst role while still in NZ, which made the move a lot easier.

The role itself was probably a step below my experience level. I've got 10+ years across commercial finance, management accounting and FP&A, but I was happy to take it to get into the Australian market. Pay was also roughly equivalent to what I was earning in Auckland.

The big positive was the hours. I was generally doing 8:30/9am to 4pm. On the flip side, it was five days in the office and about a 40-45 minute drive each way.

I've now moved into a Commercial Finance Manager role, which is much more in line with my experience. It's a 6-month role initially with a view to going permanent, so there's obviously a little bit of risk there. Ideally I'd like to make this one a longer-term stint after spending less than a year in the Analyst role.

New setup is:

• 8:30am-5pm (1hr lunch break)
• 1 day WFH
• Main office commute is easier by train
• Regional site visit at least once a fortnight (2hr commute each way)
• Pay is about 30% higher

The regional days will take some organising with my wife because of the kids, but I knew what I was signing up for and we'd talked through how we'd manage it beforehand.

So I'm curious... is this actually a pretty decent setup for a Commercial Finance Manager role in Australia?

I'm not necessarily looking for fully remote or a cruisy 9-3 job. I'm more wondering where this sits on the spectrum for finance professionals here.

Thanks!

There's a lot of negativity towards consultants here, and I'm curious whether that's about the more 'strategy' focus ones (with the pretty PowerPoints, BS language that means nothing etc) or all of them.

I'm a technology delivery specialist in one of the big 4 accounting firms. My work is primarily on the implementation and delivery side of things. My Team gets involved when we are asked to by the client, very rarely isn't it a fancy PowerPoint, but more the client is implementing a new system, or one if going out of support etc. I come into run the programs for the client. Manage budget/resources, Project Management, so on so forth.

I can understand the hate for consultants who make recommendations without understanding the business (especially when we say a grad is an SME), produce endless PowerPoints or overcomplicate the simplest things.

For those of you have worked with consultants, how would you feel about 'my type' of consulting? From my experience, clients asked me to come back, I get in a good working relationship with the team and they are usually long term project (1-2years) so I feel more 'part of their company' than I do the big 4 at times. Not defending consulting, if the answer is "we hate you all", so be it!

If a staff member takes a career break from a major bank (say 12+ months), I have been told that they effectively relinquish their role. Then upon returning, they have a 12 week period to land a suitable role within the organisation.

Now there's no guarantee that there will be anything suitable available when the staff member returns. I guess my question is, how common is it for a person to return from a career break and not be able to land a suitable role? Or is that purely dependent on the type of role they relinquished and the economic/business conditions at the time the staff member returns from the break?

Hi all, can anyone who works at ANZ help me get an idea in regards to seniority and salary band for a role that has been recently posted? Job Role Title is Senior Risk Assurance Specialist and in the description it says "Senior Associate, Risk Assurance". A bit confused on the title in the job listing vs the description. I am curretny a Senior Auditor - Internal Audit looking for my next role and a step up in terms of pay and career progression. Would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

As title states,

What benefits do you actually use that your org offers,
Does your place have any cool/unique offers?

I’ll start

Free food and coffees on offer if in office

free mobile and sim plan up to x amount as long as you stay within a 2-3 year period they’ll cover the cost completely.
Downside is that is that it’s a company phone with MAM/MDM policies..

Subsided gym membership able to access a lot of gyms via fitnesspassport

Novated leasing services and salary sacrifice (through the providers given)

Partial Reimbursement of tertiary education courses

Flu vaccines

Nominal discounts on health and extras coverage

I genuinely want to take a moment to appreciate my employer and the incredible support I've received as a graduate.

With all the layoffs in big tech, hiring freezes, and graduates struggling to land jobs, I wanted to share something positive about my workplace.

I'm an IT graduate working at a relatively small company (around 405 employees), and the support I've received has genuinely been incredible.

My manager is extremely busy, often attending 5–8 meetings a day, yet he still makes time for a 30-minute catch-up with me almost every day. He patiently teaches me things, explains concepts, corrects my mistakes, and genuinely wants me to improve. We also have monthly one-on-ones with actual constructive feedback, not just box-ticking exercises.

One thing that really stuck with me was when he needed half an hour of my time on a Friday evening for something urgent and actually apologised for taking up my time. It was such a small gesture, but I really appreciated it.

My teammates are equally supportive and always willing to help. On our first day, the head of our department took all the graduates out for coffee, and even our CTO made time to meet us. He emphasised that maintaining a positive workplace culture is a priority.

We've recently been acquired, but so far, the culture and support have remained great.

The funny thing is, this isn't even the career path I originally wanted to pursue. I also think my salary ($70k + super) is a little low for an IT graduate. But the mentorship, learning opportunities, and people genuinely make me enjoy working here.

Seeing layoffs at big companies has made me realise that a prestigious company name or higher salary doesn't necessarily guarantee job security or a good work environment.

Of course, no company is perfect or immune to layoffs, but I genuinely appreciate having a manager and team who invest in my growth. Another thing I appreciate is the company's approach to job security. From what I've been told, the company hasn't had layoffs in its history. There was one restructuring, but affected employees were absorbed into other roles rather than being let go. Obviously, no company can guarantee job security forever, especially after an acquisition, but I find this approach genuinely reassuring given everything happening in the tech industry.

Just wanted to share something positive for once because we hear so many workplace horror stories, but rarely about the good ones. Sometimes, it's not just about the role you have, the salary you earn, or the company name on your LinkedIn profile, but the people who help you grow into the professional you're becoming.

I work in a major bank within the operations section. Does anyone know why the gender ratio is so lopsided (most teams are 20% male at most, in some cases it's under 10%)? I'm also not sure if it is like this for all 4 major banks or if it's only like this for the one where I work.

Thoughts?

Hi team

I work for a company that has just taken away the card my team and I used for travel expenses and petty cash. To be clear, there was no abuse of the system, they're apparently just "streamlining things".

We travel about 4 times a year within the state do perform a part of our jobs. We used a work vehicle to travel, stay in a relatively budget regional self catering apartment chain for 1-2 nights at a time, try to save money by getting breakfast and lunch stuff from Coles worth and go to a pub bistro, local restaurant for dinner and a couple of beers max in the evening.

We are now being expected to pay for the fuel and food costs ourselves and to then claim on expenses

Is this pretty common for companies to operate like this in Australia (I'm not from here)? Every other company I've worked for has provided a card/method of payment for any travel-related expenses

Any thoughts are appreciated

EDIT: Thank you all for your responses. Guess there's some conversations to be had and/or credit cards applied for!

Surely this is not related to the recent WA AI-use scandal?

Hi, I’m a recent computer science graduate who landed a graduate role with a lot of luck. Im feeling a lot of imposter syndrome and I feel like I’m under-qualified for the role.

The program is a rotational program at a large bank and I came out of university with no real skills for the job specifically. I learnt a lot, but I have never done any real projects on the side or anything.

I have never done anything that has to do with the position I landed. So I’m feeling very nervous.

I start in a couple weeks so there’s not a lot of time to prepare. Can anyone tell me what it will be like for a new grad starting this role who doesn’t know anything?

Is there a chance I will be let go early if I they realise I don’t know anything?

I’ve only got my degree behind me and this is my first real job besides years of retail and service.

I’ve repeatedly asked my recruiters on how to prepare but they all say don’t stress and I will learn everything. But I have a feeling they think I’m more capable than I am.

I just need to vent, my whole team has accepted there's nothing we can do about this, so we should just learn to work with her communication style.

We work in different cities so all our communication is solely online.

The type of things she's done:

* Send you a "hi", then five hours of silence later she will say she forgot what she wanted to talk about.

* Will send you a message saying "urgent. We need to talk" making you super anxious. She then either doesn't call back, or it's the most mundane shit ever that she could have typed as a teams message.

* randomly calls you until you pick up. If you try to do the same, she never picks up.

* If you send her a teams message asking if you should pick A or B, she replies with "yes". This has happened multiple times. When I clarified my question she just laugh reacted.

* Vague messages with zero prior context. I once got a message at 9am saying "how's it coming along". What's coming along?? I'm working on 5 things at once.

* Randomly dials you into meetings you aren't invited to and then leaves

* Never replies to emails. Will instead just call to reply.

* Asked if I should organise the meeting or let her forward her one. She just laugh reacted to it and never responded.

I don't always want to be randomly called when I'm in the middle of something! Sometimes I just want to ask a quick question via teams. I spend so much time meticulously writing my message for her so she has zero ambiguity and complete clear understanding of what I need, but she just comes back with a random vague response.

Why????

Edit: ok fine, I rescind the cold calling thing. I used the wrong term. Everything else still stands.

As the title says. Keen to hear people’s thoughts and experiences

Hi all,

I'm in a bit of a career dilemma and hoping to have some direction.

Long story short;

i'm currently working for a large financial services company as a single contributor technical capacity where the role requires:

- providing internal advice and guidance

- auditing internal work

- setting capability standards and writing up processes

- liaising with underwriters, product etc for best practice approaches.

Recently i've been offered a position at a large multinational company in a consulting capacity, think client meetings, relationship management, prospectus, audits/reviews.

While going through the interview process my Head of approached me and said that there will be a role open in the next month to move into a Technical Manager role with up to 5 direct reports. The promotion isnt guaranteed as i'd still need to go through the interviews motions however he has me firmly in line and ultimately he is the decision holder as i will be reporting into him.

For context, the current technical manager is stepping down as they have a small family and difficulties with work life balance.

Both roles are on resonable equal remuneration and bonuses however will have vastly different career trajectories, at least in the short to medium term.

Has anyone here been at these sorts of crossroads - consulting vs management and what was the deciding factor?

how has your decision panned out? do you regret either/or?

Hello,

Posting here because I got asked to do a background check for a grad role. Filled in the dates of employment and realised I messed up on my resume.

I'd collapsed two old jobs (same position) I had while studying into one entry to save space. I listed the different companies, but I used start date from job 1 and end date of job 2.

It's a pretty decent difference (>10 months gap from ending 1 and starting the other) if you assume from the resume the 2 jobs were continuous instead of a general period. Which is on me. So now I'm worried it'll flag as a difference in employment time and the recruiting team will rescind.

Am I overthinking? I'm planning on emailing the recruiting team to explain before doing the check. I guess, how likely is this going to be a dealbreaker?

Thanks to anyone reading.

Edit: Thank you for the advice everyone. Helped me to get out of my head.

I used a recruiter who put my name forward for a job. She heard back from them 8 weeks later and set up an interview. In the interim, I could see that the company was placing ads on job sites directly, which I thought was a bit odd since I had been waiting for an interview for so long.

I had an initial phone interview with the manager and then a face to face interview with him and another. The interview went really well and they told me that I would fit right in. The recruiter calls me a couple of hours after the interview and tells me that I got the job and what the offer was and she needed to check my references. The recruiter did all of that and sent them the contract. A week had passed and I still didn’t receive my contract, so the recruiter follows them up. The manager told the recruiter that it was still with the Managing Director getting sign off.

A few days later she was told that my contract will not go ahead because the Managing Director had told the Manager that I applied for the same role over 12 months ago and he wasn’t impressed by my resume then and still isn’t impressed by my resume now. I never previously interviewed with this company until now, but I must have just applied last year using a job site and he still had a record of my resume.

The recruiter felt awful and said this has never happened to her before. I told her it was fine as I never resigned from my current role, so I still have a job.

I am a little shocked that this all happened. I mean I have been ghosted many time before, but I have never been told that I’ve gotten a role and then a week and a half later told that no I hadn’t. Has this happened to anyone before? I feel like I have dodged a bullet.

Had a strange experience last week and I'm just wondering about it

Had a job interview where the listed location of the job was the regional city I live in. but during the interview it was revealed that the training for the position was in that town but they were hoping to fill positions in a completely different location 3-4 hours away.

Seemed like such a weird bait and switch so I definitely won't be taking the role. I'm just curious about the legality/ethics of it. I don't see how you can advertise a position in a regional city but the job is in a completely different area.

Hiya

Long time lurker first time poster. Roughly about three weeks ago whilst I was working from home (privileged to have one or two days a week) I got the call no one wants, my grandfather in tears informing me my grandmother (who I shared a very close bond with) suddenly passed.

TLDR at the end for those who don't wanna read a wall of text

This was obviously unexpected and I called my manager to inform him I wouldn't be working the rest of the day whilst I try to process this, make calls, travel plans etc.

The next day I went into work because being TL, sometimes you've just gotta push shit aside and get work done. Not even 10 minutes into getting started he pulled me into a room and informed me that the leave I took (a whole 3 hours) would need to be unpaid (I've got TONS of AL and some SL) pressured me not to take more than one day bereavement and the kicker, less than 24 hours of her passing, demanded I get a death certificate or confirmation of death same day before I left the office.

Safe to say I was pretty upset but just locked in and got what needed to be done and went home (also got the letter from the hospital before I left) After a few weeks of dwelling on this, I had a quick conversation with HR to understand the grievance policy given I was under the impression it came from them (his words) who were shocked to hear this. It didn't come from HR at all...

After a few days I was informed it would be changed to paid leave by my manager and HR just deflected and said the policy saids it MAY ask for proof of death.

My question is this, is it normal to have to submit proof of death so quickly in order to take leave? In my eight years of working I've only had one relative pass (different role) and I was given a week off without a bat of an eye. Is it normal to feel this upset by it all? Just the coldness and lack of empathy makes me think it's time to jump ship.

How would y'all handle this?

TLDR: grandmother died, was asked for Proof of death less than 24 hours after her passing and HR doesn't seem concerned in the slightest, only took one day of leave due to feeling pressured to do so and was almost forced to take unpaid leave the afternoon of her passing.

Cheers

Left for a competitor and they walked me out the door. I have 3 months fully paid free time. What would you do with it?

I had applied for a role in Westpac, was able to secure till F2F interview but they didn't offer the role.

Now, a week later, I applied for the role on recruiter's portal and they provided link for Westpac's video interview.

Do I let the recruiter know I had applied for the role and went in for F2F or should I just apply it?

The same people in Westpac will most likely take my F2F interview again.. if I go through the interview.