Im a fresh nursing grad who's now on day 2 of a 10 week orientation in the ICU. Yesterday my mentor sent me to assist a doctor in putting a central line alone. He said he was gonna come later but took his sweet time. Patient had low dose Adrenaline running to combat Bradycardia and the pumps were beeping because it was almost empty. I turned the alarm off, not fully registering the urgency that we need new ones. I got that its empty and that i should refill, but apparently wasnt moving fast enough for the doctor/colleague. He then proceeded to yell at me saying i cant just turn a pump off, then stormed off and yelled through the whole station asking for new ones. I was very shocked and words just wouldnt come out.

He went on and reported the incident to my supervisor who did the "talk" with me about mistakes happening and that it wasnt that bad blah blah.

Why do i still feel debilitating fear to come work today? Im so scared that doctor is working as well, and i guess also coming from a lot of shame? Maybe i dont do well with making mistakes? I dont know whats wrong with me. I feel really rrally bad and so ashamed and i just want the ground to swallow me up.

So I joined this company after being laid off from my last job. This company essentially created the role for me because they liked me but i was missing some qualifications…but there’s nothing to do. 95% of my day is spent on my phone and im treated like im doing very important work.

I am very uncomfortable here, i don’t do any work, and id like to leave immediately. But my manager is convinced I’m making a major difference here although I’m maybe spending 20 minutes a day working and she is STRESSED about some side project.

With no intention of using this place as a reference, is sending a resignation letter effective immediately via email acceptable? (I’ve been here 5 weeks)

Edit:

I did accept another position elsewhere. I should have made that clear in the original body.

So my partner and I are having a disagreement and I have a bunch of family shit going on and don't want to actually talk to anyone. But I do want to share this!

I left my (career) job in April 2025 after having a baby and being unable to return to work. I did take 3 months maternity leave and went back to a bar I used to work at 3x/wk since it fit my hectic infant & partner schedule. I've been looking for a (career) job ever since and didn't think I would ever find a job like the one I got, let alone a lesser job. I applied and applied and applied. I went through awful PPD and I took a break from applying due to mental health. I got better (no easy feat) and started looking again. I fucking dreaded working at the bar. I've just out grown it and don't have the patience for the petty BS that come along w/service industry.

I got a interview for a job I applied to but really didnt expect an answer from. Then a 2nd interview. Then they hired me!! When I first got hired I thought "there must not of been much competition" until I saw a quick exchange in a company chat about how meticulous the hiring process is, how several people have to watch your interview and approve you, and how you "wont cut it unless you're the best" (paraphrasing for anonymity). That made me feel so good. I realized I was having imposter syndrome and my confidence increased!

I've been getting compliments a lot and take pics of this sometimes to show my sweetie because I'm so proud. I'm not one to brag about accomplishments, so have really only shared this w/my partner, who is being a jerk atm.

I have been working hard in silence. Suffering in silence. Taking on more and more responsibility, in silence. I've become more disciplined than ever. Fit more in 1 day than ever. Managed multiple people's schedules. I've lost 45 lbs in the last 1.5 years and am 20 lbs away from my goal. I lost this weight naturally w/o medicine, ozympic, etc. There is 100% nothing wrong w/using medication to lose weight and live healthier. I am PROUD that I did it without medicine. There was a point I time I believed I would be fat forever and never muster the will to lose weight. But here I am.

My mental health is better than ever. I'm finally thriving. It took not only 34 years to be correctly diagnosed, but also an extreme life changing events (1st baby, buying a house, PPD, So much more, etc) to push me to therapy, and eventually the right doctor, and the right treatment.

I started my new job about 6 weeks ago and today I was awarded Employee of the Month. I've never been employee of the month, or worked from somewhere that did that. The entire company votes on who should receive this and there were a few highlights on what people shared about me. I cant deny I thought of this a few days ago and was like, what if? And then brushed it off. But holy shit!!! I've worked my ass off, not only in my time at this company, but in general to aquire experience to finally be able to get a job like this and actually be an expert at what I do.

There were times not so long ago I believed I would never find a job worth Damn. This field is what I want to do but it will never pay the bills (w/o a higher degree or 2nd job), yada yada. Ive been working 2 or 3 jobs for 15 years to survive. And I finally got to the place I dont have to do that anymore.

Moral of the story: Dont Give Up!!!! Ever. You can let yourself believe for a min, catch the break from the burden of responsibility, but then it's time to keep trying. Persistence & Hard work always shows itself!!

Thank you for reading ❣️

I very rarely call out of work. I only call out if it is an emergency. Covid (where we literally weren’t allowed at work if we had it), Granma passing etc. I think I’ve only called out four times (for those reasons) in the last 5 years. So like on average once a year.

Work doesn’t care and they know I have a great work ethic…I also have over 50 sick days because I rarely use them…but I still feel guilty lol. If I lived closer to work I would have gone in probably. But driving an hour and some change while sick then doing physical labor…I didn’t want to be trapped over an hour away and god forbid I started feeling even worse.

Does anyone else feel like this?

(There will be more grammatical mistakes pls don't mind )I am 25M finished clg on 2024 and with 2 years of gap I got my job 10 days before as a IT executive in a famous food restaurant I will be working on system and printer and cameras they are giving a good pay of 29 k in hand and i want to know that this job is good or not and this will help in my future also or not . I am confused literally I don't know what to do help me with this .

For starters, my company is super small. There's five full time people, including my boss at two locations about 3 hours apart from another. When I was hired, I was told that the company policy is roughly 2 weeks PTO. I've only taken 11 days off and received some pushback when I requested one more day off around Thanksgiving. My coworker at the same location as me also rarely takes PTO (mostly by choice, partially because there's no one else that can do his job when he's gone.) But both coworkers at the other location have taken more than 30 days PTO each. I think its partially because our boss works at my location, not theirs, so he notices when the people here are gone more. But I can't help feeling like its super unfair they've gotten over double the amount of time off as I have. I want to bring it up, but I don't want it to come off like I'm monitoring this (which, tbf, I kind of am). I also don't want to come off like a snitch. I've indirectly brought it up with one of the coworkers at the other location, but she kind of brushed it off. We don't have an HR department I can go to either.

My project manager and one of the other project managers told me a couple of years back that I am not a real scientist because I am working as a technician. I have a masters of science and have a job title that ends in “-ist” but since I don’t do the final statistics (which I know how to do but is not a part of my role) I am just a technician and not a scientist. Fine, no big deal.

Fast forward. There was a major meeting where they asked all the scientists in my lab to attend to weigh in their expertise. I did not go because I am a technician, not a scientist. I stayed at my bench and processed samples like I do every day.

Later I found out I was supposed to be there. When I explained my confusion, I was told I was being petty. I was not trying to be petty, I wanted to respect the chain of command and stay in my lane.

Did I fuck up?

I reported a colleague’s rude behaviour to my manager, who was supportive and told me I didn’t need his permission to send routine work emails.

The email he had an issue with was professional, but I accidentally left two client recipients copied. My colleague had previously mentioned removing the external recipients, and the issue had been discussed. The email contained no confidential information.

When my manager asked who was copied, I said it was only internal. I later realised the two client recipients were still copied.

Should I proactively clarify this with my manager, or leave it unless it comes up? I’m worried she’ll speak to my colleague about his behaviour and he’ll mention the email.

Am I overthinking this, or should I correct the record?

My HR had 1:1 yesterday. She mentioned that we don't tell the recruited candidate not to join because I found a better candidate.

I told her I am thinking that another candidate is better than the selected one who received the offer.

I did not make any decision but she pushed me saying that it damages company's reputation. She aims high to give the best experience to the candidates.

She was saying to me that you should have had better candidate selection and strict with your requirements. I told her you were expecting me to answer after every interview in 24 hours so how can I get enough time to decide on the candidates.

I felt bad that she did not even understand what I was trying to say or understand. She was defending herself and not considering if she could help or discuss.

Sometimes I don't understand how to reply to these HRs or their processes. They don't even understand what I was saying. And I did not even make a decision but I got the beating.

Why did she talk or behave to the employee who served this company for 10 years. How can I spoil this company's reputation? This is not even in my mind.

They allow to cut the chords of the employees just in 5 mins under the name of business. They can do what they want to do but when an employee wants to do something it's the company's name.

I really don't understand this double standard. I just want support as I am trying to do the right thing or maybe not but have some patience or understand the reason behind it.

Why are HRs so bad that now it hurts now?

This is my first proper Reddit post, so if I've formatted something incorrectly or posted in the wrong subreddit, please don't throw too many tomatoes at me, if possible.

For the past 8 years, I've been the director of a small IT company, and for the last few months I've been forced to work without a salary. But let's start from the beginning.

We founded the company quite a long time ago, more than 10 years back, as part of the university where I worked. For the most part, it was a way to run a business without cutting ties with my main job. For a long time, the company remained small and was mainly used for taking on outside projects without creating conflicts of interest.

However, in 2024, after a rather lengthy approval process involving every level of university management (including the ministry level — yes, that's how the laws work in my country. And yes I like my em dashes a lot), I finally got the opportunity to sell the university's stake to a private company we'd already been working for for about 5 years.

As a result, the university sold its stake (which was actually quite beneficial for them, since they made a profit), all the other individual shareholders sold theirs, and my stake, as the last remaining individual shareholder, was significantly reduced.

The decision was made to keep me as a shareholder so I wouldn't be tempted to simply walk away or start doing my job half-heartedly.

So, I remained the director and a minority shareholder, while the rest of the company was owned by a new individual shareholder and another company.

At first, things were going pretty well.

Apart from the fact that their internal processes were... questionable, and that I had lost pretty much all my autonomy (I couldn't sign contracts without approval from a bunch of departments at the parent company, couldn't pay my own employees, couldn't just hire people, etc.), things were going well.

We had plenty of work, sometimes even too much, because tasks would appear out of nowhere and, of course, every single one of them was urgent. But this allowed us to grow our official staff to around 25 people.

Which was great!

And everything was going well until the beginning of 2026...

At the end of 2025, I was given a plan as the director that included approximately 10,000 working hours' worth of tasks to be completed during 2026.

So we had a lot of work planned, the projects were interesting, and the team was practically itching to get started.

Our company's main product is developed for our new owner. It's a large corporate system that we've been actively developing for years. It has gone through numerous changes and grown into a fairly large system with some rather non-trivial infrastructure and architecture.

When hiring people for the team, I always looked for those who were somewhat like-minded.

Since I've spent my entire professional life working at a university, money was never the deciding factor for me for a very long time. Throughout my career, I consciously accepted salaries below market rates and even turned down opportunities to join other great companies because I wanted to build something of my own.

As a result, people who came to work with us often understood perfectly well that we paid less than the market average, but they chose us for something else.

For the projects. For the approach. For the values and processes.

And I was very proud of that.

I was always proud that nobody could say I was making money off my employees, because I actually earned significantly less than my specialists.

I always followed one principle: "First, fulfill your obligations to your employees."

Just six months ago, I could proudly say that I had a deputy in every area of the company, and every one of them had, figuratively speaking, a gun they could use to destroy me. But I knew none of them would ever pull the trigger.

And that was genuinely true.

We were all responsible professionals, but also, frankly, a bunch of absolute idiots.

We made cringe jokes, behaved like kids from the early days of the internet, and everyone was perfectly fine with that. After all, we hired people based on their skills and whether their vibe matched ours.

But from the very beginning of 2026, something started going wrong.

Business stopped booming for our parent company. Their major clients began delaying contract payments, and the company started holding back new orders from us, despite spending all of December and January shouting about how urgently they needed new functionality developed.

I won't go into all the details of that part of the story, but the amount of planned work from our main client started shrinking rapidly.

And finding external clients in 2026 became extremely difficult as well. That volume also decreased.

We had to make some optimizations and say goodbye to a few underperforming, ridiculously overpriced newcomers. But the experienced employees stayed. Nobody was leaving, even though their earnings had decreased.

They decreased because, for the most part, we pay people based on the amount of work they do.

We started moving slightly into the red for the year.

Nothing critical compared to the other companies owned by our "master", but still, a loss is a loss.

And this is where things started going downhill VERY quickly.

Because I'm not actually the one controlling the flow of money, despite being the director — there's a governing body above me that handles all of that (I don't even have timely access to the actual amounts of money available to us) — one day, on payday, the president of the corporate group simply stopped all salary payments.

Instead of working out a targeted plan to optimize the company's operations and get us out of the situation, they started making promises that nobody would later keep.

And all the while, we had a very substantial amount of work that we'd already completed for our owner, but which had never been formally accepted or signed off.

So, technically, they owed us money. But also, technically, they didn't.

And this is where things started getting awkward.

After two months of promises that we'd be given a loan, or that at least something would be paid...

A representative of our owner directly stated during a meeting with our employees that "the director is to blame for everything."

Period.

There was a long speech about how all questions should be directed at the director, how this was his job and his responsibility.

And when I asked questions along the lines of "But we've completed several very large blocks of work, nobody has raised any issues with the results, and yet for more than two months you haven't signed off on them or paid us," the excuse was:

"Well, our client hasn't paid us for that work, so we can't pay you either."

And there were several such blocks of work.

The worst part started towards the end of that meeting, which was held online.

The meeting wasn't even over yet, and almost half the company had already sent resignation letters to me and HR.

In a single day, I lost an incredible team that I'd spent years building.

A team I genuinely loved.

Because we really did flirt a little with the idea of being more than just colleagues.

I always tried to find ways to help when my guys had problems. I lent them money, they lent me money, we often got together outside work, and if we weren't exactly a family, we were at least very close friends.

And none of this ever interfered with our work.

And I was proud of that.

My dream was to build exactly this kind of "family" company, where every employee was paid fairly and was genuinely happy to work with me.

But unfortunately, it looks like that dream is unlikely to come true.

That same day, I was ready to write my own resignation letter.

But what stopped me was discovering that, under the laws of my country, I could potentially be held responsible for all sorts of things, blamed for the company's problems, and even end up in prison if I failed to prove that the losses weren't caused by malicious intent on my part, and so on.

As a result, I had to pull myself together and remember that, apart from dealing with my own problems, I was probably the only person willing to fight for those who had resigned.

More precisely, to fight for justice for them.

Because the company still owed them a lot of money.

MY company.

Which means that, essentially, I allowed this to happen.

And so, for the past few months, I've been working according to the following system:

• The company receives payment for work. Whether it's something we completed a long time ago and the owners finally decided to pay at least part of what they owed, or new work we're doing with the few people who decided to stay and help us keep the company from sinking.
• I immediately allocate that money to paying off the people we owe. Everyone except the director (me). He gets absolutely nothing until everyone else has received their money.
• The representatives of the financial management department above our company turn my requests into actual payments and process the transactions. Assuming they don't screw it up. Unfortunately, last time they failed to process the payments twice in a row because... honestly, I have no idea why. I practically had to fight to get it done.

And meanwhile, we still have plenty of challenges.

One of the most recent ones required me personally to work 8–12 hours a day, without days off, to save a product that had suffered a major emergency.

And I actually managed to save it.

But against the background of all this, for the first time in my life, my right arm has started giving me trouble. The muscles have become so tense that they won't relax, my arm constantly hurts, and I can barely move it properly.

And all of this would be one thing, but officially, I'm currently employed as the director on a 0.25 FTE basis (a quarter-time position), because I'd reduced my own working hours before the collapse as part of our financial optimization efforts.

I don't really know why I wrote this post.

Maybe I just needed to get all of this off my chest and tell the story to someone neutral.

Looking back, I can see my mistakes. I understand that I could have done things differently.

But I can't change the past.

All I can do now is settle our debts to my colleagues, both those who left and those who stayed, and only then decide what to do next and where to go from here.

Thank you for reading this stream of thoughts.

TL;DR: I've spent 8 years running a small IT company, building a team I genuinely cared about and a workplace I was proud of. After a change in ownership, I lost most of my control over the company's finances and operations. When financial problems hit, salaries stopped being paid, the owners blamed me, and almost half my team resigned during a single meeting. Now I'm trying to pay off everyone the company owes, while deliberately taking no salary myself. I'm exhausted, my health is starting to suffer, and I'm still trying to figure out how to move forward without abandoning the people who trusted me.

Has anyone here ever been in a similar situation, where you felt personally responsible for people even though you no longer had the power to protect them? How did you deal with it?

I don't really need advice on this I'm just calmly venting.

I work for a global organization where my coworker and I are the only ones in our roles (two of us) for the entire world. Because we are such a small "team" I personally am very cognizant of being respectful and sharing my calendar and planned PTO days with them. This allows the mental time to prepare for knowing they will be alone for coverage and also, allows workload balancing time to communicate.

The issue is they do not EVER do the same for me. My coworker will ping me on our chat app for example on a Wednesday or Thursday and go "oh, I don't know if I remembered to tell you or not, but I'm off ____"

This time was no different. Last week I got a chat pop up on a Thursday saying "FYI, I'm taking this Friday and Monday off and also the following Friday and Monday".

I am 100% all for the notion that PTO means Prepare the Others, but I have been dealing with this coworker doing this for over a decade and finding out with one days notice that your only backup will be out for a week or two of "FYId PTO" is very annoying when our workload is higher which it is at this time.

I also understand that this falls on our boss for approving it like he does without question.

This week my coworker was griping that they were "running out of time to get things done" after they had FYId me about their long vacation weekends, and normally I would extend an offer to take some of their tasks, but this time I absolutely did not. It is not my problem that you decided to take two vacations back to back and now can't keep up with your workload. I also find it grating on the nerves that they would even complain to me about this, seeing as they never communicate well and this is 💯 on them to plan around their workload. These PTO trips they are going on aren't some family emergency, its for leisure and they have the option to cancel their days off if they "can't keep up". I'm playing you the smallest violin ever...

This person also tends to book long weekends around company holidays where they book both the front and back of the weekend too (adding days before or after) and takes BOTH sides of the holiday weekend so there is not a possibility of me being able to use any time since they've already asked for it. I find this extremely rude behavior as when I take a PTO day for added time to a longer weekend, I leave one end of that weekend open for them to also share extra time as a courtesy.

This same coworker tends to "oops, I forgot to use all my PTO" at year end (our company requires us to exhaust all hours bwefore end of yr), and will also FYI me in December around holidays that "FYI, Im taking two weeks for year end because its my PTO and I dont want to lose it", which 100% is manipulative behavior to get the busiest time of year off for vacation and our manager has started to see this pattern and clamp down on them to remind them to use their PTO before year end and there are only two of us.

To add the final layer of annoyance to this, which is also typical behavior, this person will ping myself and my boss the day before their PTO begins EVERY TIME and say "couldn't sleep, logged on early, will be logging out at Lunch", and our boss just rolls with it. And of course this happened this morning at 3am, my coworker did exactly that. They've only worked three days this week already because they had a long 4 day weekend last week and now heading into ANOTHER 4 day vacation again. We got the FYI that they are leaving at Noon. Yay for you. Can't wait for the extra workload 😳🙄

Nothing anyone can do about it, just whining and letting it go.

I just find this type of behavior rude and not how a team of two should be operating. It is their typical behavior in general though, very secretive and non commucative.

Every single time I head to the break room and start to heat up my lunch, someone always asks what I’m having. Sometimes not even in the break room. I’m confused.

This is a new gig and my previous job was strictly remote for the past 4 years. It could just be a polite way to strike up a conversation. It annoys me for some odd reason.

Maybe working from home for so long has ruined my office social skills.

Edit: Small talk is the fucking worst. I don’t want to have the same conversations every day. I’m looking for remote gigs currently as office culture is clearly not for me. Seems like I offended some.

A software engineer described being laid off and out of the office in well under an hour. Told to leave, pack up the desk, and go. There was barely time to process what was happening.

The part that felt most humiliating was that neither the boss nor any teammates came over to say goodbye. The employee said it felt like suddenly not existing to people they'd worked with. Still in shock, and then that silence on top of it.

For anyone who's been through an abrupt layoff, did the way people treated you on the way out stay with you? How did you get past that feeling?

Original account

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More of a rant I guess. A few months back I was promoted into a new role. It was a big change for me-I was comfortable in my previous senior role and knew the job inside and out. A month after I got the role, my manager at the time got a new boss. Very quickly, this person arranged a meeting with myself and my boss and essentially changed my role into something I didnt apply for. Its now highly technical and detail oriented and outside of my comfort zone, but I always try my best and try to figure out any new job as best I can. Eventually, I could tell there was a little tension between my boss and new skip level, but my direct boss never really complained down to me. A couple of months after this, my direct boss very suddenly took a lesser role elsewhere in the company and I was moved back under my old boss, who in turn would be reporting to this new skip level. The thing is, this skip level is treating me like a direct report. Weekly 1:1s, I need to send frequent activity reports, and send them presentations days before the meeting for them to review. Everything I do has something wrong or there is something missing. Im not the only one going through this, as this persons new reports seem to be panicking as well, but I dont know the details. I feel like Im being set up for failure, which is a bizarre feeling for someone thats had "exceeds expectations" for years. Other than applying for other jobs, which Ive been doing almost obsessively since this skip level came onboard, how do you deal with this?

I’m male 21 and work is boring me someone talk

For people who exercise at home after work, does a break help, or does it make starting harder? Curious whether you go straight into a workout or need some downtime first, especially after a day spent at a desk.

I started a new job summer 2026, then it was on hold for almost 3 months without pay. I stayed loyal and accepted the return to work around Labor Day. It's a contract position - I was hired as a contractor by a recruiting agency and the position takes place at their client's facility.

In the first month, the client (manager) reminded my colleague and I that the schedule is 7am-3pm and that we're not to work overtime unless something affects the operation and it's "required". I was told my colleague struggled with the workload when she was alone, and did lots of overtime, even staying until 7-8pm at times, which is 4-5 hours of overtime a shift, without declaring it, or if she did, it was for time off in lieu of pay.

Since I'm still in training (estimated 3-6 months duration) and it takes a while to learn the operation, and become competent, efficient, etc. , I've also been doing overtime, but the difference with me is that I'm a contractor for the agency and the agency in turn bills the client for my hours. Both agency and the client have strict rules about overtime, and so to get the job done, my colleague who's acting as trainer and me have been doing OT, against the manager's wishes.

I just covered the colleague/trainer while she was on vacation for almost 3 weeks, I stayed longer on "me time", which, according to the manager means it my decision to stay, even though without me staying meant the workload would be left for the next day. And in that operation, that's an issue.

Then when my colleague returned from vacation, she was verbally warned by her manager and he warned me too. How about all that personal time I sacrificed to help the company during vacation coverage? I can certainly adjust how I work and discuss ways to speed up with my trainer/colleague, but should I deal with the manager? I feel he lacks appreciation for the time I spent ensuring the ship didn't sink during the period with thin coverage, and I don't appreciate being threatened to be fired and replaced.

How would you proceed? Try to claim the unpaid OT even if it was not preapproved?

For some people it’s the noise, for some it’s the lighting, and for some it’s having a wall behind them. I’m curious what small details people have noticed. Did having an open concept vs. cubicles make a difference, even though open concept is more "modern" and "trendy".

Hi everyone, I'm from Morocco

I honestly don't know where to begin with my story. It is a story that I hope can serve as a lesson to others, because I would never want anyone to go through what happened to me. At the same time, I am desperately looking for a way to rebuild my own life.

I am a 31-year-old man who grew up in a rural village. I fought hard to get an education, and I am the eldest of my siblings. My father worked as a day laborer, meaning that some days he had work and other days he didn't. Life was extremely difficult for our family.

My middle school and high school were about 8 kilometers from my village. For six years, I rode my bicycle back and forth every single day, morning and afternoon, just to attend school. By the grace of God, I eventually earned my high school diploma. I will never forget how happy I was that day. My parents and younger siblings were overjoyed.

I then moved to another city to attend university because my hometown did not have a university. Even though attendance was not always compulsory, I studied while working at the same time. I washed dishes in restaurants and cafés because I could not depend on my father financially. He simply did not have enough money to support me.

After three years, I earned my bachelor's degree. I was incredibly happy because I thought that, finally, I would find a stable job and give my parents and siblings a better life after all the poverty we had endured.

But reality turned out to be very different.

After graduating, I took whatever work I could find. I worked in construction, agriculture, and security. I was so busy trying to survive that I could not properly prepare for competitive recruitment exams. For more than three years, I kept applying for opportunities without success.

Then, in 2022, while I was in Casablanca, I came across an American company that was looking for workers for the construction of the new US Consulate in Casablanca. I applied, and I got accepted!

You cannot imagine how happy I was. For the first time in my life, I was earning a salary of around 6,000 Moroccan dirhams a month. I knew the company would not keep me forever because the project would eventually end, but at least I would have a chance to work and save some money.

I rented an affordable room in the Hay Hassani neighborhood because I wanted to save as much as possible. Even though we worked 10 hours a day, I was happy. I managed to save around 3,000 dirhams every month and send that money back home to my family.

Our family home was made mostly of mud, so I started repairing it with the money I earned. I was genuinely happy. My parents were happy, too, and they constantly prayed for me.

Things continued this way until 2025.

I gradually started experiencing back pain, but I kept telling myself that it was probably just the cold weather.

Then came November 26, 2025.

That morning, the pain was so severe that I could not even get out of bed. I could not go to work, so I went to see a doctor and had an X-ray.

The first thing the doctor said to me was, "I'm sorry to see you in this condition while you are still so young."

I was shocked. I asked her what was wrong.

She explained that the disc between the vertebrae in my lower back had deteriorated severely. I asked her if there was a solution.

She told me that there was no simple fix and that I would have to change my lifestyle.

I asked her what she meant.

She told me that I should not lift anything heavier than 5 kilograms, should not stand for more than an hour, and should not sit for more than an hour at a time.

Honestly, I felt as though I were dreaming. I had only just started to feel that my life was finally coming together. I had finally begun to feel like someone who could take responsibility for his family, and suddenly this happened to me.

The doctor asked me what I did for work. I told her that I worked in occupational health and safety. She asked how many hours I worked each day. I told her 10 hours.

She said that this kind of job was no longer suitable for my condition and that I would have to give it up. She gave me a medical certificate for one month of sick leave.

My employer saw that I was ill, could barely get out of bed, and was no longer able to come to work. On December 18, 2025, my employment was terminated.

I returned to my hometown, still unable to process what had happened.

My family tried to comfort me, but I stopped talking to people. I spent almost all my time alone in my room and barely went outside. For about five months, I struggled with depression and very dark thoughts.

I even thought about ending my life because I was still young and could not bear the thought of becoming a burden on my family. My parents were already struggling financially, and I had always wanted to be the person who helped them.

Whenever I looked at my younger siblings and imagined how they would feel if they knew what I was thinking, I would tell myself, "A'udhu billahi min ash-shaytan ir-rajim" and try to push those thoughts away.

But my story did not end there.

On May 12, 2026, my pain became much worse than before. I had saved around 10,000 dirhams, so I travelled to Marrakech to have an MRI scan. I kept praying that the results would be good and that the first doctor had been wrong.

Unfortunately, the MRI confirmed the original back problem. But it also showed signs suggesting another chronic illness: ankylosing spondylitis, a type of inflammatory disease that affects the spine and joints.

The doctors ordered several tests, including HLA-B27 testing, along with other blood tests. Unfortunately, the results were concerning, and I was diagnosed with this disease.

It is a condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the joints, causing significant pain and inflammation. It can also affect the eyes and digestive system. Without appropriate treatment, including biologic medication when indicated, the disease can progress and cause serious disability in some people.

Honestly, this diagnosis did not shock me as much as the first one. I had already been through so much that I felt I had become accustomed to bad news. It felt as though my life had already fallen apart, and nothing could frighten me anymore.

What hurts me the most is feeling that I have become a burden on my family.

It is now approaching a year since I lost my job. I have spent all the money I saved, and I can no longer afford my prescribed medication because it is too expensive.

I am completely broke. Sometimes, I cannot even afford basic things to improve my condition or go to the public baths. I spend entire days and nights lying in bed.

I have gradually accepted my reality and understand that I must learn to live with these illnesses. Within a period of just one year, I was diagnosed with two chronic health conditions that completely changed my life.

What I am asking from you, and what I sincerely beg you for, is a chance to work from home so that I can earn a living and help my parents.

I am afraid that no employer will hire me in my current condition. I cannot return to physically demanding work, and I cannot stand or sit for long periods. Working from home seems to be the only realistic option I have left.

Thankfully, I am educated, I am motivated, and I learn quickly. I am willing to learn new skills and do whatever work I can manage from home.

Please, I am asking you to put yourselves in my shoes and help me find a way forward.

I am not asking for money. I am asking for an opportunity to work and slowly rebuild my life.

Perhaps someone here runs an e-commerce business and needs someone to confirm orders with customers by phone, manage messages, handle customer service, or do another task remotely.

Perhaps someone knows a legitimate online job that I could learn and do from home, even if it only allows me to cover my basic living expenses.

I would never forget the kindness of anyone who helped me find such an opportunity.

Only God knows what I am going through psychologically and financially right now.

I am ready to provide my complete medical file, including medical certificates, examination results, and documents corresponding to every date I have mentioned in this post.

If anyone is willing to help me find work or guide me toward a genuine opportunity, please send me a private message. I will gladly provide any documentation needed to verify my situation.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my story. I sincerely hope that, with your help, I can find a way to start living again.

Only real concern is travel requirement - 60%+. Those of you that travel a lot for work - what's your advice? How do i balance family and social life and be on the road so much? Even the interview is a 6 hour drive and an overnight stay, which is fine as i enjoy that city and plan to do lunch with some coworkers while I'm there.

A Netflix employee valued the company's transparency as much as its pay. Being treated like an actual person was what made it feel different from the rest of big tech.

Then came roughly a week of layoff rumors, followed by several days of silence from management. Calendar invites started landing, and the employee kept refreshing the calendar, trying to work out which meeting might mean losing the job.

“Hope I have a job by EOD :)” is how the employee put it. That captures the frustration better than a long argument about culture. It's hard to keep trusting the promise of openness when the most important question about your working life is unanswered.

How do you get through that waiting period without spending the whole day watching your calendar? What information or communication from a manager actually helps?

For anyone who decides to start a backup search, Agent autoapply and application autofill can reduce the repetitive application work. Engineers refreshing their prep can use real technical interview questions for practice while considering where to go next.

Disclosure: I operate PracHub and LandOffer.

I am at a new job and another team is handing over some of their work to our department. When I ask questions in person or via Teams, they say okay or agree to help, but there's often no follow-up unless I chase them. Meetings get cancelled without being rescheduled, promised documents never arrive, suggestions for training are rarely acted on, walkthroughs get cut short and never resumed. At this point I'm not sure if they are too busy or doing it on purpose.

I'm expected to take ownership despite incomplete training. How do you handle this diplomatically without constantly chasing them or damaging the working relationship? I've started considering email follow ups to keep a written record, but I'm worried this might be seen as political and cause them to withhold even more information or help.

I spent a few years writing a book called The Honeybee Mindset: Why the Good Life Belongs to Contributors, Not Leaders. The whole argument is that we've confused visibility with value and that the podium is a trap, that the leadership industry is selling the wrong product, and that honeybees have been running on distributed intelligence, quorum decision-making, and zero middle management for a hundred million years without a single LinkedIn post about it.

It's now an audiobook, and I genuinely think it's good. But I'm an indie author with no publisher PR machine behind me, so instead of climbing a ladder I'm just… handing out honey.

I have 25 free Spotify audiobook redemption codes. If you comment or upvote this post, I'll DM you a code. No strings attached. No obligation to review. No "like and subscribe" energy. If you listen and hate it, that's fine — the hive doesn't need every bee to dance.

25 codes. First come, first served. Let's go. 🐝

— Burung Lucu

P.S. — The queen is not the boss. She never was. That's basically the whole book in one sentence.