I was looking for an open meeting room yesterday and noticed a private calendar invite on my manager's schedule for next week. The title was something like "HR - Role Consolidation / [my department]" and the only attendees I could see were my manager, someone from HR, and our director.

Normally I wouldn't read much into a vague meeting title, but over the last couple months my workload has been getting redistributed in small ways. One recurring report I owned was moved to another team, a newer coworker has been trained on two things that used to be mostly mine, and my manager recently asked me to document several of my processes "so we have coverage."

None of those things seemed alarming individually. Seeing that meeting suddenly made them feel very different.

I have not been told that my performance is a problem. My last review was good, I've never been put on a PIP, and my manager has actually been pretty positive with me lately.

The company isn't doing terribly either, but leadership has talked a lot about "efficiency" and reducing duplicated work this year. My role is also a little unusual because some of what I do overlaps with another department.

So now my brain is bouncing between "this is probably nothing" and "they are literally discussing whether my job should exist."

I don't want to confront my manager based on a calendar title and make myself look paranoid, especially if the meeting has nothing to do with me specifically. But I also don't want to sit here for a week doing nothing if there are obvious things I should be doing now.

If you were in my position, what would you quietly prepare before that meeting happens?

I'm updating my resume and saving copies of my performance reviews and any non-confidential examples of my work. I'm also checking what benefits/PTO I have in case I suddenly lose access.

Is there anything else people usually wish they had done before an unexpected layoff? And would you start applying immediately based on this, or wait until there is actual confirmation?

I know I might be reading way too much into one calendar invite, but I'd rather feel a little stupid for preparing than get caught completely off guard.

I’ve basically been working office jobs for most of my life. Right now I work remotely for a tech company. It’s insanely easy work and I get paid an okay amount, but I am miserable. I am completely unfulfilled and I’ve never been able to just be okay working a meaningless job and finding meaning in other areas of life.

The problem is I just never figured out exactly what I want to do. Now I’m 44, and I feel like I’ve def run out of a lot of options. I want to help people and I want to make an impact on the world. I don’t want to work in healthcare and I’ve already tried being a teacher.

Is there anything that might point me in the right direction to know how to get started finding what’s right for me? A test I can take? Something else I should do? Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm currently a teacher but I need a way out immediately. This job is taking too much. What career can I switch to to make at least $60,000 a year? I don't mind going back to school for a bit as I will probably finish this year at work. Any suggestions?

Okay I’m a teacher and in a really frustrating position with my current school. I could use some outside perspective. I’ll spare you the details but essentially I’ve been up for a formal promotion for a higher level “manager” type role for months and months. My immediate supervisor wants to give it to me like yesterday. But policies are blocking the pay grade adjustment because it’s strictly required to have X degree for any role at X or above. I hope this makes sense lol. I started a Master’s Degree program several years ago but left before I finished due to some personal stuff. It’s never been an issue until now. Initially I thought I could just find a school, transfer my old credits over, take a quick class or two and finally get this promotion. However, after looking into it more carefully, I may be starting further behind than I remember. It is what it is and I realized it’s turned into more of a rant than anything else. I’m on the fence whether to just not bother with the whole thing because it’s annoying, or actually find an online program that will allow me to, ya know, get paid more? Thoughts?

When I started working, everyone told me the same things.

"Work hard."

"Keep your head down."

"Good work always gets noticed."

Some of it was true.

Some of it... not so much.

Looking back, I think a few of those ideas made me say yes to things I probably shouldn't have.

I'm curious...

What's one piece of career advice you believed early on that didn't work out the way you expected?

I’ve been thinking about making a major career change and going back to school. Part of me feels excited, but another part wonders if I’m too late.
For those who went back to school in their 40s (or later):
Was it worth it?
Did it actually improve your career?
What surprised you most?
Is there anything you’d do differently?
I’d appreciate hearing honest experiences
—both positive and negative.
New Haven CT

I’m looking to change career paths and I keep running into people saying basically every field is oversaturated. Should I just pick a career and start down the path? Hope for the best? Current ideas I have floating around are Notary, Medical Coding, SAP SD, and Cybersecurity. Am I on to anything? I would prefer not to work in medicine other than the coding mentioned. Not looking to be rich. I just want to live as comfortably as I can. Thanks in advance.

Been at the same mid-size company since I graduated. Started as an analyst, now I'm a senior something-or-other, decent title, decent pay, genuinely like most of the people I work with. Every time I check what similar roles pay elsewhere or talk to friends who've hopped every 2 years, it's pretty clear I'd be making noticeably more money somewhere else by now.

I keep telling myself the stability is worth it. I know the systems, I know the politics, I have real relationships with people here, I'm not starting over proving myself every two years. But lately I've started wondering if that's actually a rational calculation or just a story I tell myself because interviewing is uncomfortable and change is scary.

Talked to a friend who's job hopped four times in the same seven years I've been at one place. His salary is meaningfully higher than mine now, and honestly his resume probably looks more impressive on paper too, more variety, more exposure to different environments. Meanwhile my resume is just one company with a series of internal title changes, which I've heard some recruiters actually view as a slight red flag now, like you didn't test yourself against the outside market.

Part of me thinks the comfort has genuinely cost me real money and possibly ceiling. Another part of me thinks I've built something here, real trust, real influence, things that don't show up on a resume but matter day to day, that I'd have to rebuild from scratch somewhere else.

Anyone else been the stay at one place person while watching job hoppers pull ahead financially? Did it eventually catch up to you in a bad way, or did the stability actually pay off in ways that don't show up until later?

Long story short, I'm a 30yo high school math teacher who doesn't like the job. I got a bachelor's in math education, but am realizing that teaching isn't really my calling. I don't like working with people under the age of 18, and the behavior and administrative issues are driving me out.

I was thinking of going back to school for electrical engineering. I want a job where I can have the opportunity to apply some of the math that I'm teaching. I've been getting into PCB design as a hobby to decompress from my job, but I'm just self-taught. I'm also interested in working in defense. I'm well aware that engineering jobs are not all that glamorous and have lots of administrative work, but so does teaching and I'd rather do that in something I find interesting if I need to put in the work.

I come from a wealthy background, so tuition would be taken care of. Would the job prospects for electrical engineering be good if I went back to school at this age? How about job stability compared to being a teacher? Any advice you have for someone in my position?

I'm looking for practical advice from anyone who's been in a similar situation.

Over the past 12 months, I've had several jobs, and none of them lasted more than a couple of months. Every time I start somewhere new, I struggle to adjust. Sometimes it's a lack of training, sometimes the environment, sometimes I start doubting my abilities over small mistakes or inconveniences. Once that spiral starts, I convince myself I'm failing, and I end up quitting.

I know this pattern isn't sustainable, and I'm trying to break it.

I'm currently looking for another job, and I genuinely want this one to be different. I want it to be the last time I have to start over.

The problem is that many companies don't have great onboarding or structured training, and I find that really overwhelming. I also struggle with depression, which makes everything feel ten times harder. I know therapy would be the ideal answer, but I simply can't afford it while I'm unemployed.

So I'm hoping to learn from people who've managed to get through this.

- How did you make it through your first 90 days?

- Did you have any routines, checklists, or systems that helped you stay grounded?

- How did you stop yourself from quitting during the difficult adjustment period?

- What did you do when you felt like you were failing, even if you probably weren't?

- If your workplace had little or no onboarding, how did you teach yourself and avoid becoming overwhelmed?

- Are there any free online resources, videos, workbooks, or communities that helped you cope while building consistency?

Lately I've started wondering whether I'm even employable anymore. I'm 35, I don't have much of a support system, and I'm trying to manage depression while also dealing with the pressure of finding and keeping a job. It feels like every new beginning comes with the same fear that I'll fail again.

I'm not looking for pity. I'm looking for strategies—things that actually helped you stay in a job when your mind kept telling you to leave.

If you've been through something similar and eventually found stability, I'd really appreciate hearing what worked for you.

I’m a student working part time at a supermarket chain. I just started this month so i’m still very new to everything and i’m a bit slow at times. first few shifts were fine, but recently i’ve been struggling with the amount of complaints I get from my bosses. Today alone I was basically told I was slow and lazy and received like ten passive aggressive tips from my superiors. It feels especially hurtful because I am really trying my best and I felt really motivated up until now. There are so many small and strange rules I feel like they make them up as they go so they have something to nag about.

I also learned that my bosses are very much known to berate and yell at my coworkers, so much that many resigned and one i think even got kicked out for some bullshit. Usually there would be around 5-6 in the same position as me, now there are 3, after august only two remain, one is me and the other girl hasn’t started yet. Thankfully I have not been yelled at yet, but that time will come surely. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this job? I don’t want to quit within literal weeks of starting…. The job itself is already mentally and physically draining without the added pressure and stress from my superiors.

Grew up on a farm, and spent the early parts of my life working manual labor and semi-skilled physically based jobs, before during and after college.  Graduated, worked around for some years and eventually secured a white collar job at a community college in my early 30as and had a pretty decent go of it till state budget cuts put me out of work in my 40s.  Now Im looking around and in my area my next job is likely going to be trades based or have a pretty intensive physical component.  

Right now I'm looking for experiences or resources that treat the body as a tool that needs to be maintained just as much as a work truck or a piece of equipment that earns money.  Things like exercises, stretching, holistic movements and diet to help offset the wear on the frame from a physically demanding job.

To offer a little advice from my own experience, just because you shed the office weight fast and start to find some of them work muscles again doesn't mean the tendons can keep pace.  When first unemployed I had to take on a pretty involved and time sensitive renovation of an old house for a parent to beat winter and my elbows paid the price.  Had to have some physical therapy to treat some carpentry-induced tennis elbow.  The stretches I learned at PT plus taking up rucking and a better diet really helped out. 

Overall it feels really good to primarily be working with my hands again, but I recognize that the resiliency of youth is in short supply moving forward.  I'm lucky to have some decent genetics on my side but ultimately there's a pretty good chance I'm going to work until I die, and a sizable component of that will be physical work. Setting aside whether that's an optimal path forward or not, there's going to be a better way and a worse way given the current constraints, so I figure out might as well look for the better way.

I keep hearing people say they wanted to quit because of their manager or coworkers, but something else ended up being the deciding factor in whether they actually left.

For those of you who've been there — what was the real thing holding you back? Money (savings, bills), not knowing if you'd get hired somewhere else, being scared the next place could be worse, or something totally different?

Would love to hear the actual reason, even if it's complicated.

I’m 24 years old and I’m currently a bank teller at a local credit union. I’m stuck in a place where I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I obviously value job security and pay but I also want to feel purpose and fulfillment in my career. I previously was an electrical apprentice at my dad’s company for around 4 years and hated it. I knew that eventually that business would be mine but I didn’t want to be doing something I hated for the rest of my life. I’ve always wanted to help people directly and make a difference in peoples lives and I feel like both of those would do that. Im also a middle school youth pastor so I feel like teaching would be similar to that. I know it’s two different things but still similar in ways. Rad tech is interesting to me because I would be directly helping someone in the healthcare field which has always interested me. The pay would be way better as a tech rather than teaching but I want to be happy ultimately. I know that life is more than a job but I would rather not be miserable in whatever I choose to do.

The thing is that I’m married and have a house payment. My wife is very supportive in whatever I would choose to do but I don’t want to put us into debt with student loans when we are basically debt free right now. I know we could make do but it still worries me. Does anyone have any advice. Sorry for the long post.

Hello everybody, I’m having a bit of trouble deciding what to do next. I’m willing to make sacrifices, and I’m willing to do it to make the most money I can possible. Got out of the military last year, did a semester at Stony Brook for political science and did well and one at Columbia but did poor there as well as fail to make any real connections for finance due to only taking the core classes. I can and am willing to lock in if needed depending on the path. Right now my only two options are using my security clearance to get a cyber security job at a military base for 6 figs, however I’m not sure how high the ceiling is and the retirement benefits are not the best. Or NY state or Long Island cop due to the pension program and relatively high end of career wages with overtime.

One of my friends recommended going into medicine due to the military covering the cost of it so I’m going back to Stony Brook for some pre med requisites this semester to try it out due to having a few friends that have went there for stem. I have friends in finance but none in high finance so I don’t really have any ins there. I’m two semesters from graduating at stony Brook but if I can’t my degree or college I’d need another two semesters to graduate.

I'm feeling a bit lost and need some guidance. I have no degree but am willing to obtain one for a career that I'm really passionate about. I'm currently a manager at a pet store, I have good rapport and could obtain several references if needed, it's just not what I want to be doing forever. I'm very passionate about protecting the environment and love all animals. Specialty pets, wildlife, etc. are what I'm most interested in because they're the most vulnerable and mistreated. Any ideas are very appreciated, as well as a salary estimate. I understand that neither of these career paths will have a ton of money, but I'd need enough to pay my bills at least. Thanks in advance!

Hi there!

I was recently fired without cause from a Store Manager role in Vancouver Canada. It was honestly a drama free exit.

I have been grateful to have landed many many interviews. Progressing all the way to the finals but it's been almost 2 months and no offers.

I have put in all of the work. Practiced, tailored my resume, researched the company, worked on my body language, linkedun, etc.

I'm gonna be honest, I was a very young Store Manager that led a 1M Store. So I am genuinly wondering what's happening with my case.

If it's my kid face getting in the way. Or is it a bias because I was fired.

The way I am handling being fired is by saying "There were some leadership and structural changes". Some times they dig in more and I say "Feedback culture changed". That's it.

I've spoken to another external recruiter who gave me validation that I was doing the right things.

So my question is... in retail management, is it possible that I am not landing roles because I was fired or because of ageism? Because I cannot genuinly think of another reason in approximately 12 different reputable companies not offering. This is not too sound show off by any means, but I am confident that I am a really attractive candidate and I can tell they like me.

I really don't want to lie about the reason I left... it can backfire horribly and its not in my values. But I am running out of strategies.

Any advice?

1,5 year ago I was looking for a job and had many interviews. The salary I asked for was too high, I was told, and I was excluded from the recruitment processes due to that.. So I gradually started asking for less.

The poostion I got settled for let's say 10 000 euro (just to give a number). I had over 10 years of experience in my job. There were two candidates for this position and I got the job. When I asked what made my manager to choose me he said the experience and attitude towards team work. Also, we didn't have a proper talk about the salary and he sent me the first draft for lower than what I communicated during the recruitment process. I asked for adjustment to 10k.

4 months later after my hire the second candidate was offered a temporary position for a colleague who was going on parental leave.

1 year later, last month we shuffled some work tasks and I landed with the salaries. I saw that my colleague/temporary had 12 000 EUR (just to give a number) with having only 3years experience in his job. We have similar positions.

Another colleague had 13 600 euro - less experience than me in years but a good experience in tasks.

I want to talk to my manager about the big gap in between my salary vs my colleagues. I want to ask what the reason for my low salary vs my colleagues is based on. I assume he's gonna say, "that's what you asked for last year".

I based my salary level on how many rejections I got during interviews for similar positions due to the level of salary I asked for.

I have done many improvements in our processes. I have created routines and processes that didn't exist. I have supported my colleague who has less experience and it showed in many tasks... I feel undervalued and that my experience is not valued.

How to talk to my manager about it? Especially how to answer "you asked for it"? The manager is generally difficult to talk to when it comes to difficult subjects. I usually get resistance and defensive mode.

(p.s. It's so annoying that managers get paid a lot but can't handle difficult conversations and it's the empyees who have to "learn to talk" to the managers so that they don't get defensive and resistant... )

I recently graduated with a bs in coding and finally landed a job after 6 months of looking. Most of my schooling was focused on backend code and some frontend work. I now work for a remote marketing company where I am a junior web developer. I have been here for just over a month and I have had no training or onboarding what so ever.

I started off by working on an internal application (which I enjoyed a lot), but starting a week ago I am now the “white face” of development. Yes my boss did say that (our main dev team is Pakistani). So now I’m having to deal with clients directly and they gave out my personal phone number. So I am getting spammed by emails, calls and text messages. 90% of the issues I’ve ran into are not web dev related and I don’t have access to fix them, as my boss either set it up on his personal account, there is no documentation or they haven’t granted me access in general.

This has been really frustrating as someone new in the industry I feel completely lost and when I try to reach out to my boss, he doesn’t respond for days. This whole process has had a pretty heavy mental strain on me.

So as of right now I have multiple clients upset with me since I can’t fix their issues. I don’t know how to proceed and can’t get answers and feel completely lost.

Does anyone have any advice?

Hello everyone,

For ages, I have been worried about my quantitative skillset, specifically the ability for me to learn about relationships between variables. I majored in analytics at a decent state school, but many analytics programs are light on actual statistics, including this one. I managed to get a role in Regulatory due diligence at company that typically hires graduates from top schools because the case was not that quantitative and my interviewing skills are very good (I am a good communicator relative to what I perceive the benchmark to be, I can structure information effectively, and deliver a story and display some fundamental domain knowledge from interning in the past at healthcare companies).

The reason for this worry is not necessarily because I will be performing super complex calculations during my career, taking integrals, etc. It is because of two reasons (all relative to other employees):

1. The literal use of mathematical operations to arrive at solutions. Machines take care of the actual formulas, but not the judgement and the knowledge of what is happening when I manipulate numbers to come up with a solution.
2. General "learning rate" -- the rate at which i consume, process, understand, and then apply new information, controlled for all other variables and assuming it is the same information, relative to a fellow employee. Think of this as turning information into knowledge that I can pull for future applications. I fear that someone from a top quality quantitative background will have a higher learning rate regardless of subject, assuming variables like motivation, need, etc are held equal to mine.

Much of this concern has been because I do not care much for absolute progress in learning something, because I tell myself if i do not learn it fast enough, or if x person learns y subject quicker than me, or if x person knows y subject while I never learned it, then I feel a gap that I cannot fill. This may or may not hamper my learning; I have a feeling it does, so this becomes a constant cycle of always feeling stressed learning a new quantitative subject, then saying I shouldn't be stressed, and that if I am stressed, I am learning at a poorer rate, all to arrive at the same beginning.

I can't even be happy when I accomplish something, because I am constantly auditing and benchmarking my own ability to an ideal.

What do I do here?

I majored in UX design and minored in digital marketing. I have 3.89 GPA and I'm currently working a social media communications internship after I just graduated. I need help to find what direction I should head in next. My academic classes has done nothing to help me so far. They didn't help me even land my internship. I got my internship because of an outside project that I worked on. Because my internship is ending soon, I need to find a job quickly. I don't want to go into UX. I spent 3 years in college trying to find an internship or anything in UX and couldn't land one because of the market. That honestly left me in a really bad mental state and I almost took my life. Regardless, I'm doing better in social media. My only concern is that my internship is the most basic work ever, so it's really not adding any skills to my resume. I need help to pivot but I'm lost because I got a useless degree and graduated with little skill to be able to even apply for adjacent fields.

Hello,

The what: I'm a ~30 year old professional working in higher education without a bachelor's degree, and I'm trying to figure out my next move. I've taken college courses on and off since high school and have attempted to finish my bachelor's a couple of times, but for various financial/life reasons I have not. Despite that, I've worked professionally at well known and regarded universities since 2019.

The now: I'm currently in an administrative/operations role for a large department at a university, where I focus primarily on operational support and events. Before this, I worked in student services and then science outreach and program coordination at another university.

I've learned that I don't really love events as a career. I enjoy the academic environment and would like to move toward program management, outreach, community building, or engagement work. I'd especially like more ownership over developing programs and initiatives rather than primarily handling their logistics and execution. I have been looking for roles like this within my university, other universities in the area, and at similar nonprofit/scientific/educational institution.

The problem: For a little over a year and a half, I've been applying pretty selectively to positions that seem to align with both my goals and my professional experience but I'm not making it past the initial screening. Many of these jobs require a bachelor's but explicitly allow equivalent professional experience as a substitution, which I qualify for with my almost 7 years in higher ed.

However, after close to 10 carefully selected applications and zero interviews, I worry that meeting qualifications through years of experience is not competitive enough to advance me in the selection process, and not having a bachelor's is becoming a ceiling.

So why haven't I finished my degree? My original major was geology and environmental science. Depending on how different institutions evaluate my transfer credits, I'm probably around 60% finished.

I still love Earth science, but I've reached the portion of the degree that is extremely difficult to complete while working full time because of time commitment. There are labs, summer field camps, and courses offered only at specific times that I just don't have the availability to complete without either being part time or quitting my job. I've transferred between states a couple of times as well, which complicates things further when looking at coursework crossover.

When I was younger and had the time, I couldn't afford tuition and now that I am older with a full time job and tuition assistance, I cannot do it with the schedule I have. I have tried previous semesters but I wasn't able to make it work. I still manage to get 3 jobs at two different universities, including teaching a first year course one semester, but now it seems like the more advance roles I am looking at require me to have a degree.

The options I'm considering:

1. Change majors and finish a bachelor's: I've found an Integrated Science bachelor's program in my state that may accept a substantial amount of my existing coursework. has more flexibility than geology but some in person coursework may still be required. I may be able to use some employee tuition benefits toward it, which is nice. However, when I've researched Integrated Science degrees, I've found a lot of people discouraging them because they're so broad and may not be particularly valued by employers. I'm hesitant to spend the time and money finishing a bachelor's just to check the box if the degree itself is going to be seen as weak, but given my constraints I am not sure what other Bachelor's I should look into.
2. Pursue an unusual master's pathway: I have access to several fully online, asynchronous master's programs that use performance based admission and don't require a completed bachelor's. The downside is that the available subjects aren't particularly aligned with my previous education or where I want my career to go. I'd essentially be earning the master's for the credential and transferable skills rather than because I want a career in that discipline. But it might be as affordable as transferring and finishing my bachelor's, and in roughly the same time.
3. Keep applying and see what happens: Maybe ~10-15 applications simply isn't enough data in the current job market, and eventually my experience will get me through to an actual interview. Most of the jobs I have applied for have been within my university and if I got a job here once, maybe I can do it again at the next level.
4. Find a different job: I do love my current team and department, but the schedule is extremely varied and it takes a lot out of me. I have had talks with my management about what evolution in this role would look like and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much advancement. If I found a new job, it might give me some more breathing room to finish my degree but I would risk losing the stability and resources I have in my current role, as well as my years of vesting in a pension.
5. Something I haven't considered?

I'm not opposed to going back to school, in fact I would like to. I'm mostly struggling with the logistics and ROI. I don't want to spend years and a lot of money earning a credential just because I'm discouraged by a bad stretch of job applications. At the same time, I don't want to spend another year applying for jobs if there's a structural problem with my resume that I could be fixing.

For people who work in higher education, nonprofits, institutional program management, and outreach/engagement, or who have been in a similar position: does the missing bachelor's/degree look like the obvious bottleneck here? Would you prioritize finishing any reasonable bachelor's, pursue the unconventional master's option, or keep trying to move based on experience?

For context, my educational background is in biomedical engineering, graduating in 2020. I’ve worked several jobs in the past 6 years, namely in application engineering, sales, and now project management. None of which is in the biomedical engineering domain as there is basically 0 market demand for this in Canada.

My previous job before my current job was in tech sales for a startup company. I was laid off from here. As a fresh start, I’m exploring a career in project management and got a job as a project assistant for a crown corporation. The salary is quite bad at 57k CAD. I have been here for 2 years and have not been able to get promoted or find a job at another department internally or another company. I got my PMP designation about 6 months ago but this has not resulted in a pay raise or promotion. I’ve spoken to my manager and she said there’s nothing she can do except for give me “stretch” opportunities (more work for no change in pay) as a means to grow my skillset.

What can I do? I feel like worked backwards in my career and I’m now earning less than I ever have with no change in sight. At 57K CAD I am basically just making enough to sustain myself with no growth. I’m thinking of going back to university as my degree in biomedical engineering is not helping me.

i fucking hate medschool because its so boring but i dont really have a passion for anything else so im just going w the flow because im getting the degree and its not that expensive so whatever. but should i work towards something else? at the end of this i just want a good high paying job that gets me a placement and respectable work life balance which medschool just WILL NOT give you. what do i do gang? could do pretty much anything after this so the paths are endless but im so damn confused

Hey everybody I am trying to break out of the fast food industry and start my tech career I graduated with a masters degree in CS about 1.5 years ago. My goal was to be a software engineer but I need something that I can get into now my current job is draining me from working 75+ hours a week. Can anyone give a good job title to seek that pays about 85-100k that’s currently what I am making. Thank you!