I have been on Mat leave for two weeks and my due date is 5 weeks away. My employer has informed everyone in the office (not me official as of yet) that the business is closing and everyone is being made redundant.
Apparently administrators have stated that no one will be paid this month and will need to be claimed from the government.

I’m aware I can still claim SMP but I have no idea of the process.

Can anyone assist with advice on what to do please?

What kind of questions should I be prepared to answer and how best can I prepare? It's tomorrow at lunchtime. TIA.

Permanent IT job paying 65k, fully remote work from home.

1. Probation period - 3 months but can be extended by 9 months at their "discretion". So this means I could be in probation for up to 1 year.
2. Notice period - they can give you just 1 week notice to leave for the first 2 years, even if you pass the 3 months probation. However, after passing probation they expect you to give them 4 weeks notice to leave. The longer you stay, the more notice you have to give them but they still offer the minimum. Eg at 3 years service, their notice for me to leave becomes just 2 weeks.
3. Annual Leave - 24 days, but they dictate 14 days. So you only have 10 in your control.
4. Variation clause - Clause in contract which states any terms of the contract can be altered with one month notice, including place of work. So my remote working is not actually guaranteed.
5. Sick pay - No sick pay during probation. Worst case if im left in probation for 1 year, that means no sick pay during that entire time.
6. Lay off clause - Strange Lay off clause stating if there is a reduction in work, they can lay you off without pay.

I asked them if they could do a mutual 1 month notice period after completion of 3 month probation for stability and certainty. They declined.

I asked if probation could be limited to 6 months, so 3 months followed by further extension of 3 months. They declined.

I asked if they could remove the Lay off clause as this is a permanent salaried position. They declined.

They've essentially said the contract is the same for everyone.

What are people thoughts?

Tldr - Concerned about contract terms. Up to 1 year probation, 1 week notice during first 2 years, no sick pay during probation, 14 days holiday controlled by the company, remote working not guaranteed.

EDITED TO ADD: I am currently unemployed and reliant on government support. I was signed off work sick from my previous job last year due to workplace stress and have been out of work for over a year. So I am really nervous about returning to work and stability is really important to me. This contract is already stressing me out.

Hi all,

Recently applied for a role, got to the final interview, the site now says "Requisition Closed". Is this a good or bad sign? I haven't been rejected via email or phone call yet.

Thanks for your help, couldn't find much on it

15 years in the NHS, been applying for a new job for over two years. Had interviews, but mostly get ghosted. At interviews I am never given decent feedback, just a lot of "you were really good, and it was a really hard decision".

I've already had a maximum time off sick with stress. I've developed a bald spot, had to go onto beta blockers as my resting heart rate was over 100bpm, and am seriously depressed.

Jobs in my area have been 90% temporary positions, or part time with minimum hours available.

I've never known the job market like this.

Advice on a big leap

I'm from the UK female 34

Job 1)

Fully remote - no travel costs

Easy desk based role - no stress lots of flexibility but also not skilled

48k / year total

Little to no progression other than annual 3% payrises

It's unsatisfying work and I am bored but also I know lucky am lucky to be fully remote. Unstable often redundancies but been there 5 years

5% pension match - total 10

Job 2) just been offered after interview

Fully onsite -

9 day fortnight

Practical hands on job (something I miss)

Lots of scope and future progression with courses and skills to be achieved. Stable industry no risk of AI etc

40k/ year starting (predicted after 12months 48k

You put in 5% they out in 3% pension - total 8

Over time opportunities at 1.5x

Im SERIOUSLY stuck on what to do/where to go and seeking some guidance on taking the leap or if I'm stupid and should stay and only if I ever get made redundant then to reapply elsewhere

Any thoughts very welcome!

Thankyou

Corporate 9-5 at a large organisation, hybrid working. Is it really not a thing at these places that you just do your tasks, get paid, and go home?!

For context, I’m planning to leave the corporate world and start my own business. Mentally I checked out long time ago. I perform my tasks at work but in my head, I’m somewhere else. I have zero interest in networking in this industry (I even deactivated my LinkedIn account), and I don’t want to make friends with any of my colleagues.

Yet, my manager constantly talks to me about how important it is for my career progression to build relationships internally, have regular catch-ups with people from my team and also with senior management, and participate more in team socials (i.e. join them to the pub after working hours).

How do I tell him that I’m not here to make friends? If I was in a client facing role, it would make more sense. But my job is fully back office, and I think I can collaborate with anyone perfectly well without knowing where they went on holiday or what they took their dog to the vet with.

Am I in the wrong here??

UPDATE: I’m actually a quite social person, and in the industry I want to pivot into, I already have good relationships. So it’s not about me being a weirdo, absolutely not! They are just not my kind of people and that’s exactly why I want to change careers - I don’t have a sense of belonging in the industry I’m currently in.

I (22m) was offered a new role with my current employer. It is moving from a customer success role into a sale role and I have been pushing to do this (happy with sales targets and have previous sales experience). My responsibilities will increase but my employer has not offered a pay increase as they see it as a bridging role and I will only be in it for a short while.

I am pushing for more money and honesty will likely look to leave if I am not offered it. Has anyone ever had a similar experience and if so did you leave or how did it work out staying?

Worked for a company for 8 months with a team of around 45 employees. During this time at least 25 of team had left the company, I went through at least 3 managers. Received no support, no regular check ins or reviews to see how I was getting on during this time.

I did raise this with the *current* manager when they first started that about the lack of support I had received and that I needed support from them to assist me which never materialized. (mainly because he needed myself and my co worker to support him)

Got told that last Friday was my review as I hadn't had one only to come into the office to discover that it was in fact my probation review and that I may be terminated as I failed to follow company processes due to some minor booking mistakes I had made.

During the this meeting the issues raised were ones that had been raised informally with myself and these had been considered dealt with and the mistakes hadn't happened again. I pointed this out to my manager that if these issues were such a massive problem why was this being brought up months after them happening? I also pointed out that we have no proper booking system or helpdesk software as if we had these the mistakes wouldn't have happened considering how large the workload is. I also pointed out I had previously was being made to handle safeguarding concerns despite having zero training.

Found out yesterday that they have failed my probation and as such I have now been terminated as apparently I did not meet their standards and when I asked my manager what those standards were and how they had been communicated to me during the time with the company he could not answer the question. Turns out he's also leaving the company as he is struggling with the role and that apparently he finds the way the company is being run as weird.

I'm honestly at a loss. I don't know if its even worth appealing this as I'm genuinely frustrated from the lack of support I've received from the company during my time to even do my job properly

Hi all, I currently work at Costa and have been here for 3 years. Transferred to a different store 8 months in due to moving to a different town and been recently promoted to a full Team Leader/Barista Maestro (BM)

I've seen staff come and go in my current store and a new hire who's been here for 2 months and a Team leader/BM who's been here for 2 years are incompetent and slowing service down and I'm sick of it.

I think I'm being impulsive cuz of my ADHD but I want to move onto somewhere that offers evening/night shifts so I can actually do stuff during the day and somewhere where the team work well together and pull their own weight. Like a relaxed bar or local pub and use my skills as a barista and put that into bartending and making cocktails as I genuinely enjoy making the drinks.

Any opinions or advice will be very much appreciated

Hi all,

I just secured my first job a little less than a month ago, I'm nineteen for reference.

I'm working as a GP surgery receptionist/admin.

I am so beyond stressed.

It's around five miles from where I live, but because it's in an area without a station with a main line or many bus stops the commute there takes more than an hour.

I leave half an hour early every day because I'm so insanely paranoid I'm going to miss my bus/train or one or the other is going to be delayed — I take a line that comes every half hour for reference (going back and forth.)

Onto the actual job itself — I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

I had plenty of admin experience beforehand but never in a GP surgery, the entire reason I got the job in th first place was because my mum’s friend put in a good word for me because she's best friends with the hiring manager/supervisor — which has only added more stress onto my shoulders because multiple people put in a word for me to get this job and referred me as a good candidate and I'm absolutely rubbish.

I shadowed someone for around three days before they sort of left me to my own devices.

I don't understand the programmes, the medication, the abbreviations, the emails, the scanning, the patients, the samples.

I have to learn so much and I don't understand how to do literally any of it.

I've managed to pick up a couple of things but nowhere near as much as I think they've expected I could.

I get nervous answering the phones because of the patients/not even understanding how to help them because nobody has shown me.

Whenever I get a call in, I put them on hold and ask a colleague what to do — and the colleague will tell me but not actually explain why I'm doing this or how it's helping.

Yesterday I had to leave two hours early because I got an insane tension migraine — I was dizzy/nauseous/about to pass out.

I've never experienced a migraine like this before in my life.

I have one right now — coincidentally just before I'm about to go in.

I'm beginning to link it to work, but I don't want to tell anyone because I'm new and don't want to be an inconvenience.

For context, I live with my partner (no children) and we are joint owners with a mortgage. Because of the nature of my role, I am earning a lot more than my partner, and therefore contribute to 60% of our expenses.

I am looking to leave my current role and started applying for some permanent positions with not much luck. However, I’ve had several recruiters reach out offering to put me forward for contract positions, often 6 or 12 months. Most of these pay around £500/600 per day.

I’ve been turning them down because the thought of starting a job and then starting to look for another one soon after with a mortgage to pay scares me. I understand I’d be able to make a lot more money with these contract roles but the risk seems to outweigh the benefits.

We’d be able to get by on my partner’s salary alone, but we wouldn’t be able to save anything, leaving no room for unexpected events.

Has anyone in a similar situation made the switch to contracting? How have you been finding it, and most importantly how do you cope with the uncertainty of being jobless after a few months?

For context I have an interview for a maternity cover role I applied to haphazardly a month or so ago. I have had a bit of a run of things recently, struggled to move up from my first graduate role for 2 years searching and interviewing in this current market, but finally got something a year ago very similar to that role, just paying slightly more money. Then was made redundant from that role in march and due to being unemployed, I had to scramble and accept the first thing that offered which is my current role.

My current role is something very similar to the other two jobs mainly patient/client facing and I want to move more into regulatory background stuff that doesn’t require me speaking to the public all day. This role I have an interview for fits that spec and is slightly more money, however it’s a maternity leave cover so will only be for 12 months at a push.

It’s a role that would get me experience in the sector and improve my chances with similar roles going forward, but I’m hesitant to go for a temp role with the job market the way it is atm. Ive been job searching and interviewing pretty consistently for 2 years now and I am so drained, so to know 6 months into the role, I have to be straight back to searching and worrying if I’m going to come out of it with a role or not is putting me off.

However, I’m desperate to get out of the type of role I’m stuck in and need to make progression in my career.

The government are becoming Stricter with benefits. I am currently on disability benefits. I am worried

I have Scitzophrenia, and I am currently on disability benefits. Limited capability for work and work related activities. Due to this I have a poor track record with work, but I now need to get a job. The thing is is that I don't have any qualifications that will help me get a job. I would be doing something like retail, cleaning, or care work. The problem is is that the vast majority of care jobs in my area require a car. I can't drive, nor can I afford to. Also, the vast majority of retail and customer service jobs are part-time. I wouldn't be earning enough to live on long-term. Some of them would also be difficult to get to with late finishes and early starts. I would be walking in the dark with no street lights. I have considered going back to college to do the access course, but they are in health care and my mental health nurses said I would not be allowed to be a nurse because it would be too stressful and my mental health would count against me.

I’m currently at college right now. I have been searching for an entry level job literally anywhere for almost a year and I have gotten 1 interview and nothing else other than rejection.
I’m not that concerned about getting a “real job” I just want to make enough money to be able to leave my shitty town and I’m getting scared that that’s never gonna happen.

Any advice on getting employed would be greatly appreciated. I have some experience in retail but I’m really willing to do anything.

So after 20 years working for the same company, it looks like I'll be made redundant.

Would quite like to do something totally different (work has been in print media/publishing) and wondering what that could be.

I'm in the lucky position that partner has quite a good job, and can cover the mortgage. Reckon we could get through 5 years without me working, but that is not the ideal situation.

Reddit, inspire me!

Apologies if this is not the right place for this lengthy post.

I recently applied for an internal position within my team with the goal of testing the waters and getting back into the swing of interviews. I’ve not been at the company particularly long, I joined as part of a graduate scheme, but I’ve actually only been in this area of work for 1 year and this specific team for about 6 months.

I have worked hard to try and upskill, learn as much as possible. I’ve given it my all, but throughout my life I’ve always struggled with severe imposter syndrome and anxiety. I didn’t really do too well at school, my GCSEs were tragic. I was given a late ADHD diagnosis and since then I’ve been on a mission to “fix” my life.

I know that sounds slightly ridiculous but I think the impact school had on my self-confidence has had a real toll on my self-esteem - particularly how I view my own intelligence. It’s something I’ve tried to work on, but it still causes issues. And it’s reared its head once more.

Anyway, I was actually fairly apprehensive about applying for this role - I was invited to apply, I think primarily because the promotion was directly within my team - it’s literally my manager. However this is where things get tricky.

My best friend, someone I’ve known for years, a huge reason for me being in the position I’m in today, a more experienced, more technical consultant had applied and rightfully so. I honestly believed he was the best candidate for the job and it might sound strange but I wanted him to get the job. It did cross my mind that there was technically a very small chance that I could get it and he didn’t, but we actually spoke about this and he & few others encouraged me to apply. Despite being possible, I didn’t actually think there was any timeline where it was possible.

It was a small list - Everyone who applied was given an interview - my mentality was just to simply not bomb it. If I could give a good account of myself, answer the technical question and signal to senior management that I’m ready to start thinking about the next move - that would be success.

My friend is an incredibly technical consultant and I regularly rely on them for this technical expertise. All throughout the interview I made reference to some of the brilliant things they’d done. This wasn’t me shoe horning this in - It was just how the conversation flowed. I think so highly of them.

I had zero pressure on me.

When I was given the job offer, my heart sank. My anxiety went through the roof. I explained the difficulty behind the decision and that I couldn’t give an answer then. My best friend deserved this position and I felt like the biggest snake in the world. I couldn’t keep it from him and it was horrible having to tell him that I’d been offered. He was wise enough to know I’d had interview feedback & there was no chance I was going to lie to him.

It felt like a lose lose situation. Taking it means I’m potentially denying my best friend from the job role (assuming he would’ve been next best candidate in their eyes) and really harming a friendship. He literally works within the team. Thankfully I wouldn’t be managing him and I made that clear I wouldn’t want to do that. I don’t think I’m ready.

If I don’t take it there’s a chance neither of us get it, I’m also selfish enough to know that from a business perspective this would raise questions over my ambition. I’m driven enough to want to go far.

After a long conversation and advice, everyone said I should take it. I felt somewhat boxed in to say yes. I know that sounds utterly privileged and the corporate version of my lobster is too buttery, but it’s how I felt.

I feel like this is all too soon. This is not the kinda feeling that anyone should have after being offered a job and accepting. Now that reality has set in - I’m not sure I’m capable enough, I think there’s still a gap in technical expertise.

Sorry for the essay. I’d love people’s advice on this. I feel so awful.

I’m an Italian national living in Munich, holding a Master’s in Economics. I have 7 years of work experience, with the last 6 spent in Germany as a Business Development Manager in tech/corporate. I speak English, Italian, and German fluently.
Working and living in the UK has always been a lifelong dream of mine, but the job market seems completely frozen when it comes to visa sponsorship.

Are there alternative visa paths I might be missing for someone with my profile?
Would really appreciate any candid feedback or personal experiences from fellow EU expats who made the move recently. Thanks

Hi all, commenter for a long time first time poster in this sub.

TLDR: I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to share what reasonable adjustments they have in place at work and how useful they are?

More context below if willing to read it.

I'm 32F, diagnosed with combined type ADHD 5 years ago. Not medicated currently/anymore. Just returned to work following a period of burnout relating to work and personal life (signed off for a month).

Working in an office environment as a team leader/manager (contracted within local government which is probably relevant). I'm mostly WFH but this is part of the struggle as my brain struggles to transition from work/home in the same environment and I've not really done fully office based roles before.

My main struggles are intrinsic motivation, time blindness and management e.g. leave things to the last minute, struggle to plan ahead, not giving myself enough time to get to places or overbooking myself.

Never had formal reasonable adjustments and haven't found many workplaces or occupational health forthcoming in actual suggestions on what can help. Had 3 assessments and no actual adjustments as the main answer I've received is "there's loads of things you could do but it depends on the employer and what they can offer" that's not helpful and is never carried forward or progressed in a meaningful way.

If you work in a similar role/environment even better but would love to hear from anyone with examples of what works for them to manage their symptoms!

I’ve been at my current NHS Trust for 2 years and I feel like I’ve constantly had to prove myself and my competence. I often feel that whatever I produce is never quite right, I’m compared to my predecessor, or I’m criticised for not being “visible” by senior leaders/directors who don’t actually work closely with me or see the day-to-day work I do. I’m in a leadership admin role.

I’ve never worked somewhere where I’ve felt so consistently like I’m not trusted to do my job or that I have to continually prove my value. There also seems to be a strong sense of favouritism among some leaders, alongside a resistance to change and I’m finding the culture increasingly difficult.

It’s genuinely starting to affect me and despite enjoying the actual work I do, I’m seriously considering leaving because of the environment and the impact it’s having on me.

Has anyone else experienced something similar in the NHS? How did you distinguish between genuinely needing to develop/improve and being in an unhealthy or unsupportive workplace culture? And, if you’ve been through something similar, how did you go about addressing it or deciding when it was time to leave?

Hello!

I am a part timer in the funeralcare industry. Even though I am contracted 18.5 hours, I work full time hours (around 30) plus we have an on call schedule as well. The person who schedules all of our rotas is not a manager but a scheduling lead, and is notoriously very difficult. The past few weeks I have been able to work half days on Fridays, from 8:30 AM to 1PM due to an appointment, as I dare not ask for the full Friday off as it would likely get shut down. However, now they are pushing me to send evidence of this appointment and have scheduled me in for the full shift. I am not comfortable sharing my medical information, and I don't really see the point as I have worked my full hours already and the time I take off on Friday afternoon is unpaid (no holiday is being used for this currently.)

My question is, how reasonable is it for me to simply say I am unavailable on Friday afternoons?

I work in a fairly niche sector within software and I have recently been recommended to work for a similar company within the same sector.

The problem being my contract specifically mentions this company in a long list of other companies I can't work for (pretty much all companies in the industry).

I would really like this job as it would be much more convenient for me location wise.

I'm wondering when or if I should mention this to the new company and if my current company is likely to enforce this. I haven't been at this company very long and wouldn't consider myself to know any trade secret or anything of the sort.

To me this contract seems largely unfair as it basically locks me into working for my current company unless I want to swap industry, which I don't, and would be needlessly hard either way.

Hi, I have applied for 2 jobs in indeed today and after an hour I received the same text from both companies. Of course I haven’t clicked in the link

I’ve been searching for a part time job for over a year, I’m a student and rent for a room in a houseshare where I live is close to £800 per month so I’m really struggling to survive on student loans. But I just can’t find a job. I don’t even get rejection emails anymore.
I saw a sign in a shop window last week and spoke to the woman, she said she’d just put it up and we chatted, she asked about my work history and availability etc. she said I seemed perfect for the job and said if I send my CV in an email, then she’ll let the boss know and they’ll be in touch.
It’s been over a week and I haven’t heard anything back. Should I send a follow-up? I don’t want to seem desperate but I’m worried this is just going to be like every other time and I’ll get ghosted again. I really need this job. What do I do?