A Case Of The Mondays: Vent Your Work Spleen Here

[BlueSkies]

Years back on what actually was July 5th that year I said my last goodbye to a co worker/friend.  She was leaving the company.  

 

I recall telling her yeah I'm looking for other jobs myself and if I could use her a job reference in the future.  She said of course.

 

Life happened though, I'm still at my same job all these years later and I fell completely out of touch with her.

 

It's just every July 5th I think of her though and what could have been.  Sigh.  guess it just is what it is.  

[Cloud9Shopper]

My old boss is starting to annoy me by contacting me every few months and offering no help to me and just saying the same things that aren’t helping me feel better. She reached out to me the other day and said “oh I saw you were still at (current company) and I hope things are better.” I finally got honest with her instead of using the “yes things are OK” generic response and told her just how hard this layoff has made it for me to ever get employed in an admin or HR role. I said it’s like my experience doesn’t count and I’m passed right over. 

All she keeps saying is how disgusted she is for me and how she would have left the place we were working the next day if she could. Which is fine. But she’s been saying that over and over for a year and a half now. It helped me the day or two after the impact. It’s not helping me NOW when I am still feeling the effects of my layoff and still working in a call center and no one else will hire me. Meanwhile her career didn’t take a hit at all. She kept her job at the firm we worked at. She left to start her own recruiting company. She made a long post on LinkedIn the other day about just how fortunate she’s been in her own career because she had understanding employers who gave her a chance when she had gaps and opportunities to build skills and get promoted. I didn’t get what she got. I was robbed. Now all I’m good for is to be a punching bag and take abuse when customers don’t want to hear certain things.

Unless she is going to provide job leads or I need a reference, I’m done talking to her at this point. I’m the one who’s angry and who ended up losing career growth and salary potential. She can be as disgusted as she wants but she still has her house, her career, and tons of money. 

[ginger90]

56 minutes ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

Unless she is going to provide job leads or I need a reference 

Have you asked her about these things?

[Cloud9Shopper]

9 minutes ago, ginger90 said:

Have you asked her about these things?

I have yes. She’s provided references for me before and she did send me a job opening a few months ago. Unfortunately she didn’t know anyone at the company and couldn’t provide a referral. I ended up not even getting an interview. 

[Cloud9Shopper]

Unrelated to my post from this morning:

I was supposed to have a job interview tomorrow but I’m considering cancelling now. I was asked to take the predictive index before the interview, and my normal response when presented with a personality test is to withdraw from the process/refuse to complete it. But I had no other interviews lined up and figured I didn’t want to risk this interview being canceled over not doing the test, so I did it. I still didn’t see the point of it but that’s another discussion. Anyway, it just made me uncomfortable and I feel like I will continue to withdraw from jobs that require the PI or any other kind of personality test. 

I also felt uncomfortable as I researched the company and the panelists. I saw they had a 2.4 rating on Glassdoor and the job I’m supposed to be interviewing for was also open nine months ago, which are yellow flags. I know there could be a myriad of normal or good/acceptable reasons for these things (for example, maybe the role is open after nine months because the person got internally promoted or got an offer elsewhere they couldn’t refuse but otherwise liked their job. Maybe the Glassdoor rating is so low because disgruntled and bitter employees are skewing the rating but it actually is a nice place to work.), but I’m not sure if I’m comfortable taking the time off work and the risk to find out what gives at that company. About the only thing that’s normal is the interview was spread across two panels with four people on one panel and two on the other, with the hiring manager on both. (Although tomorrow is also apparently only the first round so who knows who I’d have to meet if I made round two.)

I know I’m taking a risk myself and possibly being stupid by cancelling the interview. I have an interview with a different organization on Wednesday that I’d rather pursue and I know I could cancel tomorrow and not end up with an offer from Wednesday’s interview. But at the same time, forcing myself to go to an interview for a job that I now feel lukewarm/apprehensive at best about doesn’t seem like a good use of my time either. And then again I could also go to the interviews tomorrow and Wednesday but still have no offers. 

I think I’ll sleep on it tonight and see how I feel in the morning. If I wake up still unexcited and hesitant I’ll cancel. 

 

[Yeah No]

27 minutes ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

I think I’ll sleep on it tonight and see how I feel in the morning. If I wake up still unexcited and hesitant I’ll cancel. 

I think you're doing the right thing by sleeping on it. I would never presume to tell you what you should do, but if I were in that situation I would probably go if only to learn something from it, like hone my interview skills or learn something about the company firsthand. I've gone on interviews at companies like that only to come away feeling like what I've seen online may not really be representative of the entire company or my experience if I were to work there.

It was the other way around my last company. It had glowing employee reviews on Glassdoor, meanwhile I knew first hand that the culture at Corporate was incredibly toxic. It turns out that those reviews were mostly from people not at Corporate and not at all in the departments that were the most toxic. So it really depends on where the reviews are coming from and who is writing them. Most of them were written by young recruits who were being treated like gold in an effort to get them to stay. This company always did that - treated the new young recruits like royalty while crapping on everyone else, especially those in admin. and HR roles. So much for listening to reviews....

Then again, I know how burned out you're getting from the constant fruitless interviewing so I wouldn't blame you for not going either. But wouldn't it be ironic if you went and were completely taken off guard by getting the job?  LOL That would be my life. Just at the moment I would think it was NOT going to happen, it would, and probably turn out to be the best job I ever had. That's the irony of my life!

[Cloud9Shopper]

I did end up deciding to go on the interview, but also…this is the only chance I’m giving them. If I’m still not into the job after today or can’t see myself being excited to work there, I’m not going to go through any other interviews or accept an offer. There’s no point in leaving any job, even one where I don’t enjoy working, to go to another place that could be worse or that I’m just “meh” at best about. Or continuing to use my time off that’s hard to get in the first place to interview for a job I’m no longer excited about. 

Edited July 16 by Cloud9Shopper

[Cloud9Shopper]

Update on my interview, which I just finished:

The hiring manager ended up being “unexpectedly” out today. While I understand things happen (people get sick, car broke down, kid emergencies, whatever the reason), I wish this had been communicated to me more up front. That’s the kind of thing where you should offer to reschedule or lead off with it. I didn’t even know until I met the other person who was on the second half of the panel and he said “not sure if they told you in the first meeting but the hiring manager is out of the office today so you’re stuck with me.” No. Nobody had. Not a great first impression. I’ve been both the applicant and on the company side when this happens in the past and I’ve seen it handled a lot better than “oh by the way…”  Imagine if I had “unexpectedly” not shown up to the interview! Crazy. 

I’m also not sure I’d be in love with working at a weeklong conference. It would only be once a year but I do some event-based work in my job now (and have done it in past volunteer roles or jobs) and it’s really not for me at this point in my life. I’m sure other people would love working at a conference and all the activity and being pulled in different directions. I’m not even opposed to work travel or going to a conference as an attendee. But being the one working it is not a great fit for me I don’t think. 

I’ll sleep on it again tonight just to be sure but I’m thinking of contacting the HR rep tomorrow and thanking her for the opportunity but otherwise saying this isn’t the job for me. 

[PRgal]

@Cloud9Shopper They didn't tell you that the hiring manager would be away?  Sounds like a red flag to me.

[Cloud9Shopper]

26 minutes ago, PRgal said:

@Cloud9Shopper They didn't tell you that the hiring manager would be away?  Sounds like a red flag to me.

Nope. I had no idea until my second interview session (it was an hour meeting with two half-hour panels). I understand things happen and people have emergencies but there are better ways of communicating that to a job candidate who took vacation time and was expecting someone to be there to talk to them! 

[Yeah No]

19 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

Nope. I had no idea until my second interview session (it was an hour meeting with two half-hour panels). I understand things happen and people have emergencies but there are better ways of communicating that to a job candidate who took vacation time and was expecting someone to be there to talk to them! 

I know I've said everything has happened to me, but I guess it has....This actually happened to me on my very last interview ever. I was not told about the switch either. I had to back out of a personal get-together in order to do it, which couldn't be rescheduled. The person brought in to do the interview at the last minute was a subordinate who was obviously uncomfortable interviewing and didn't know what to ask me, so the interview went very awkwardly at best. I felt like she wanted to be anywhere else but there and she rushed me through in less than a half hour. Even worse, she had on a bad attitude like she was taking it out on me that she was asked to do the interview. I thought it was a bad sign. It also felt like the straw that broke the camel's back and a sign that I needed to look for a plan B. I'm not saying that's what you should do, though, at all. But I think it's for sure a bad sign about that office if not the entire company.

Edited July 17 by Yeah No

[isalicat]

On 7/15/2024 at 8:46 PM, Cloud9Shopper said:

I was asked to take the predictive index before the interview, and my normal response when presented with a personality test is to withdraw from the process/refuse to complete it. But I had no other interviews lined up and figured I didn’t want to risk this interview being canceled over not doing the test, so I did it. I still didn’t see the point of it but that’s another discussion. Anyway, it just made me uncomfortable and I feel like I will continue to withdraw from jobs that require the PI or any other kind of personality test. 

I am currently "work adjacent" to the Predictive Index company (I can't go into details but I have become very familiar with PI and what it is all about) and you need to realize this is a super important tool in terms of evaluating your fit with the open position, the team you would be joining and the company itself in addition to your experience and qualifications. Companies are using PI and other similar evaluative approaches to spare themselves the incredible hassle of hiring someone who has the requisite skills and experience they need but would have all the wrong attitudes and expectations built in that they cannot anticipate in advance. If you really plan on a career change within the professional world I would re-evaluate your decision to not actively pursue positions that require these tests. And all the results are truly confidential - accessible only to you and the hiring company; at least they are with PI.

Can I also say that being laid off is not "being robbed" of anything? It was a financial decision taken by your employer and it is no reflection on anything else - not you personally then or now or in the future. Continuing to view being laid off as other than a very unfortunate thing that you need to put in the rear view mirror is going to hurt you, and only you, going forward. I had to leave my Ph.D. program unfinished after five years of hard effort because of a requirement I thought I had fulfilled but turned out to be something other than I was told. Yes, it was a blow and a bitch and all those things...but "sh*t happens" in life. I picked myself up and did something entirely unintended as a career and made that work wonderfully. You can too!

[Cloud9Shopper]

While I appreciate your input, I will not be changing my stance and will not be taking any personality tests for jobs. I don’t care how useful they are. I have gotten jobs at companies that don’t use personality tests and have done just fine, so I’ll continue to refuse to take them. 

I’m allowed to have limits and boundaries in my job hunt. I also don’t do one-way video interviews and record myself answering questions as a first step. 

[BooksRule]

One of my co-workers was just moved to the empty office next door to mine and it's been interesting. He moved into a perfectly neat, clean office (carpet was clean, the desktop, drawers, cabinets, bookshelves, etc. were totally cleaned/dusted and he even brought his computer setup from his previous office.  But for the first couple of days, every time I passed his office, he was walking around with a Swiffer, cleaning everything. He also likes to keep his office door shut, which means that every time he comes and goes he has to open and shut the door.  And he seems to do this every 10 minutes or so.  Open/shut, open/shut, open/shut, all day long. Except for that habit, he has calmed down a bit, but the first day he was in the office, there was a constant rattle of computer cables against our shared wall, drawers/cabinet doors opening and closing, things going bump, thump, bang all day long.  I'm not sure what he was doing, because the office is totally bare. He has nothing on his desk or on the shelves.  He really made a lot of noise, though.  It was like working next door to a hyperactive hamster.

Edited July 18 by BooksRule

[Ancaster]

I have a question for you all: do people still write cover letters?

I ask because I used to do the initial weeding out of candidates after the initial newspaper ad (this was back in the olden days).  It was a highly desirable industry, despite the crap pay.  Resumes that had no cover letter immediately went in the reject file.  My feeling was that if people couldn't be bothered to customize a cover letter to the firm and reference at least a couple of the tasks mentioned in the ad, they weren't that excited by the job and were probably sending out resumes to all the ads that fit their parameters.

[Dimity]

The last few times I applied for jobs  I didn't attach a cover letter as I felt that the email I wrote (with my resume attached) was sufficient.  If I had been sending it through the mail though I'd definitely have a cover letter - if for no other reason than to make clear exactly which job I was seeking!

[Cloud9Shopper]

I don’t really write cover letters anymore unless they’re required or I want to expand on my resume. Some online applications don’t even have a space for them. 

[Yeah No]

On 7/17/2024 at 4:08 PM, isalicat said:

I am currently "work adjacent" to the Predictive Index company (I can't go into details but I have become very familiar with PI and what it is all about) and you need to realize this is a super important tool in terms of evaluating your fit with the open position, the team you would be joining and the company itself in addition to your experience and qualifications. Companies are using PI and other similar evaluative approaches to spare themselves the incredible hassle of hiring someone who has the requisite skills and experience they need but would have all the wrong attitudes and expectations built in that they cannot anticipate in advance. If you really plan on a career change within the professional world I would re-evaluate your decision to not actively pursue positions that require these tests. And all the results are truly confidential - accessible only to you and the hiring company; at least they are with PI.

I got my M.S. in Counseling Psychology and my final project was in testing and measurement and involved just the sort career-related "surveys" or "inventories" like the P.I. Back then I wasn't familiar with the P.I. specifically but years later I applied for a job with a local health insurance company I knew pretty well after working for 4 years at a very similar health insurance company and was given the P.I. to take before they would even offer me a telephone interview. 

To cut to the chase I thought the entire thing was a bunch of total BS from start to finish. Supposedly there are no right or wrong answers and there's no way to tell what the company is looking for so you're told to just answer the questions honestly. It's definitely not predicting anything using any kind of agreed-upon metrics. It's seen as an evaluative tool, but even as that it isn't very good because there are too many subjective sides to it. Suppose your mood on the day you take it is not representative of who you are most of the time? Or the mood of the person evaluating your answers? I don't think the inventory works to factor out those pitfalls among other things.

Like in whose opinion are certain answers indicative of being better suited for a certain company or job? On what basis and where's the science this is based upon? Ummm, as far as I can see, it's all based on the subjective opinion of the test evaluator, and I'm not sure how much better that is than just going in for an interview and the evaluator meeting you and assessing you the "old fashioned" way. In fact, a person's answers on the PI may only lead them to a mistaken impression of you if your answers on the day of the inventory affected by your mood or you didn't understand the questions in the way they were intended (and with those confusing questions that would not be hard to imagine). You may answer every question to suggest you're the most cheerful person ever but what if the person evaluating your answers doesn't think a very cheerful person is the best fit for the position? Who made them the expert on whether or not that's the case? That seemed very subjective to me and because of that I would tend not to put a lot of confidence in it as predictive of anything at all. And I didn't feel that the test factored out mood in the test questions that well either.

I also realized that the test questions were deliberately constructed to trip people up who try make themselves look better by giving certain answers they think are more desirable because many of the questions were worded very similarly as if they're trying to see how "consistent" your answers are (AKA how reliable and truthful they are). I think they also want to factor out the effect of one's mood on the day of the test with this, but I failed to see how that was accomplished very well. And as someone who studied the very ways these kinds of inventories are put together, I actually found a lot of that to work against the purpose of the test in that it only confused and confounded people because you end up second guessing your answers and questioning why you've basically been asked the same question five different times. You end up feeling like it's deliberately trying to trip you up somehow. And who can give their most accurate answers about themselves if they think the test is trying to eliminate them from the get go? It feels like a trap.

I also have read that a lot of people don't put a lot of stock in this kind of survey/inventory. It pretty much has no established validity in the testing world and many people consider it based on a kind of pseudo-science. I don't always agree with the test debunkers but in this case I do. And I question someone deciding on your hiring-worthiness or "culture fitness" based on any kind of personality assessment, even one that's supposedly more reliable. Take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. There is some correlation between one's type on that inventory and what careers people with those types tend to go into and self report being happy in, so even there there is some kind of cross-reliability that I don't think the P.I. has, but that's another issue. But my question is, would you want a potential employer to ask for your results on the MBTI and use that as a basis for screening you for an interview? If that were done with me I'd never have been hired as an executive admin. because my MBTI type is not one that is associated with being happy in that career. And I personally would find that offensive and unfair if a hiring manager had some kind of prejudice against me based on my personality type! In my opinion, it would not be a fair assessment, and the P.I. is an even MORE unfair assessment.

Just my humble opinion!

ETA: BTW, I was not chosen for an interview. I had to laugh, I was practically MADE for that position and company. I never got over that. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I decided that any company that would dismiss me on that basis alone was not worth working for. At least give me a 20 minute phone interview. Why put me through the BS? After many years of looking for jobs I came to the conclusion that today hiring managers don't trust their guts and think they're going to get better results if they put their trust in some kind of "instrument". But most of them have ZERO idea of what a good "instrument" is and whether it will actually help them find the best people for the jobs they seek to fill. And that's regrettable.

Edited July 21 by Yeah No

[Yeah No]

On 7/17/2024 at 4:08 PM, isalicat said:

Can I also say that being laid off is not "being robbed" of anything? It was a financial decision taken by your employer and it is no reflection on anything else - not you personally then or now or in the future. Continuing to view being laid off as other than a very unfortunate thing that you need to put in the rear view mirror is going to hurt you, and only you, going forward. I had to leave my Ph.D. program unfinished after five years of hard effort because of a requirement I thought I had fulfilled but turned out to be something other than I was told. Yes, it was a blow and a bitch and all those things...but "sh*t happens" in life. I picked myself up and did something entirely unintended as a career and made that work wonderfully. You can too!

I don't understand how it's not appropriate to feel robbed of something just because "it wasn't personal". The fact that no one cared enough to spare you from losing your job is personal all by itself!

I was laid off once and I still feel like I was deprived of staying with a GREAT company I LOVED working for, not to mention the great salary and benefits. I was never able to find another company or job that gave me what that one did. I happened to be without a boss at a very bad time during the recession of 2008 and so was considered expendable. I ended up on unemployment for 2 years because of the lousy economy. 

And BTW, I don't ever buy that these things aren't personal in some way or another. I personally felt that when my boss left the company there were bad feelings between him and management, which I believe were transferred onto me unfairly as his assistant and someone that was close and loyal to him. I was allowed to "circle the drain" during the recession when the company had a hiring freeze even for INTERNAL transfers. So I was left swinging in the breeze and inevitably laid off. Yeah, no. I am sorry but in my experience these things are rarely that "impersonal", especially in the corporate world.

That said, at the time I did my best to put it behind me and I really did at the time, choosing to believe there was nothing personal about it and being optimistic that I would find my way to something as good or better. It was a coping mechanism if nothing else. But in the hindsight of 15 years later I am seeing it much differently now. And reality sucks!

[Browncoat]

10 hours ago, Ancaster said:

I have a question for you all: do people still write cover letters?

The jobs I hire for and apply for all require cover letters.  I can tell a lot about an applicant from a cover letter, including whether or not they actually are interested in the position.  I think I posted here about the cover letter I received that consisted of exactly one sentence -- no salutation, closing, or even the applicant's name.  On top of that, is was a poorly written sentence.

[Cloud9Shopper]

6 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I don't understand how it's not appropriate to feel robbed of something just because "it wasn't personal". The fact that no one cared enough to spare you from losing your job is personal all by itself!

I was laid off once and I still feel like I was deprived of staying with a GREAT company I LOVED working for, not to mention the great salary and benefits. I was never able to find another company or job that gave me what that one did. I happened to be without a boss at a very bad time during the recession of 2008 and so was considered expendable. I ended up on unemployment for 2 years because of the lousy economy. 

And BTW, I don't ever buy that these things aren't personal in some way or another. I personally felt that when my boss left the company there were bad feelings between him and management, which I believe were transferred onto me unfairly as his assistant and someone that was close and loyal to him. I was allowed to "circle the drain" during the recession when the company had a hiring freeze even for INTERNAL transfers. So I was left swinging in the breeze and inevitably laid off. Yeah, no. I am sorry but in my experience these things are rarely that "impersonal", especially in the corporate world.

That said, at the time I did my best to put it behind me and I really did at the time, choosing to believe there was nothing personal about it and being optimistic that I would find my way to something as good or better. It was a coping mechanism if nothing else. But in the hindsight of 15 years later I am seeing it much differently now. And reality sucks!

Thank you. My layoff (which happened after less than six months of tenure) meant I also lost out on getting to stay at the firm for 2-3 years (or longer). Which would have given me solid work experience and accomplishments for my resume that would have led to better chances of callbacks for interviews, kept me on a career track, and increased my salary over time. Instead, now I cannot get hired for anything but a dead-end customer service job with trying to follow different pieces of job search advice and having people with experience recruiting and hiring reviewing my resume. And despite getting great performance reviews at my current shitty job, I’m still taking calls because the place where I work has very limited internal openings. And right now they are hiring only an engineer and a solutions analyst, which I’m not qualified for. Of course I feel robbed. I had opportunities and career potential snatched away just as I got it.

Interestingly enough, my firm has enough money to continually hire more attorneys even though they couldn’t keep me. 

My old boss, meanwhile, wrote a whole paragraph on LinkedIn last week about how fortunate she’s been in her career. Hired by employers who gave her a chance even though she had a short stint on her resume. Got opportunities to gain skills and get promoted and keep moving until she’s finally in a good spot where she can start her own business. Her career was a whole lot of luck and being kept around because she was in the right place at the right time frequently. She used all this as a way to say to job seekers “oh I know you feel like breaking down crying but please don’t give up!” She keeps saying how disgusted she is I got laid off while she survived layoffs and has had nothing but good career fortune come her way. Maybe she should hire me to work for her then if she feels so bad. 

[partofme]

12 hours ago, Ancaster said:

have a question for you all: do people still write cover letters?

I never write cover letters.  I was laid off in February and have no trouble getting phone screens and interviews without a cover letter.    I just need a job offer. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

I have a cover letter (that probably needs updating) that I use. I frankly find cover letters a little bit old-fashioned and redundant, but if they ask for it, I enclose it. 

[Yeah No]

27 minutes ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

Thank you. My layoff (which happened after less than six months of tenure) meant I also lost out on getting to stay at the firm for 2-3 years (or longer). Which would have given me solid work experience and accomplishments for my resume that would have led to better chances of callbacks for interviews, kept me on a career track, and increased my salary over time. Instead, now I cannot get hired for anything but a dead-end customer service job with trying to follow different pieces of job search advice and having people with experience recruiting and hiring reviewing my resume. And despite getting great performance reviews at my current shitty job, I’m still taking calls because the place where I work has very limited internal openings. And right now they are hiring only an engineer and a solutions analyst, which I’m not qualified for. Of course I feel robbed. I had opportunities and career potential snatched away just as I got it.

Interestingly enough, my firm has enough money to continually hire more attorneys even though they couldn’t keep me. 

My old boss, meanwhile, wrote a whole paragraph on LinkedIn last week about how fortunate she’s been in her career. Hired by employers who gave her a chance even though she had a short stint on her resume. Got opportunities to gain skills and get promoted and keep moving until she’s finally in a good spot where she can start her own business. Her career was a whole lot of luck and being kept around because she was in the right place at the right time frequently. She used all this as a way to say to job seekers “oh I know you feel like breaking down crying but please don’t give up!” She keeps saying how disgusted she is I got laid off while she survived layoffs and has had nothing but good career fortune come her way. Maybe she should hire me to work for her then if she feels so bad. 

Ouch, my sympathies, that must have been horrible to have to read. I understand keeping up on Linkedin but maybe it might be better for your peace of mind to tune out old bosses and coworkers at least for a while. I had to do that because of stuff like this. Although it's hard to avoid all the congratulations when they get promotions, etc. I had to turn notifications like that off.

It was particularly horrible because this company had NEVER engaged in white collar job lay-offs until 2009 and when it did so it refused to hire any of those people back unless you had someone in a very high place making an exception for you. So one of the biggest product companies in the world with many divisions in this area was not an option for me. Also because of this company's reputation as never engaging in lay offs and valuing its employees I thought I was good as gold to stay there until my retirement. Obviously that was true for most people there but I had to be one of the "unlucky ones".

Even worse is that my area-mate, another executive admin. was not laid off. Like a lot of people at this company she had been there for her entire career and at the time she was at least 60. She was not a hard worker at all and my boss and I used to wonder in private how she managed to keep her job. Despite her unhelpful and crusty attitude, her boss and department loved her and never said a word as she sat there and read the paper and magazines all day. They would approach her like they were afraid to ask her to mail a letter! My boss used to ask me how she got to sit there all day and do nothing while I had to work my ass off! Of course he knew why I had a lot of responsibility but he was not blind to the injustice and bless him for saying something to show he empathized with my situation!

So after I was laid off I couldn't stop imagining this woman sitting on her ass pulling in her great salary, packing away retirement and pension money (this is one of a very few companies left that provides a defined pension program). I heard she retired a few years later. She actually had refused a "company buyout package" for any employee over the age of 55. It was a sweet deal and too good to pass up, especially for someone with her seniority, but she was single and felt it was better for her to stay than go! Why should she leave when she had it made there?  LOL  BTW, I was still at the company when they offered the buyout but I was only 50 at the time so I didn't qualify. And I was laid off only a few months later. Again, my bad luck!

I don't know if I made it clear that although my next job looked like a great alternative to this one at a similar product company, it was not the case. I had to take a pay cut to work there and there was a toxic atmosphere at the corporate office that made my 5 years there not the best, and then I was wrongfully terminated while on workers' comp., which I already posted about previously. It was probably the best I could do at the time, though, so I don't regret taking the job. I just feel like I never got back on track after that original lay-off. It didn't help that at the time there were a lot of articles being written about how people who were laid off during that recession, especially women over 50, were never able to get back to the level of position and salary they once had. I tried not to think that would happen to me and that helped me get that next job, but unfortunately looking back on it, it definitely happened.

[emma675]

I do (mostly, some applications don't have an option to include one), but my profession is one where it's kind of part of the job and helps set you apart from the competition (Corporate Communications). You don't want to hire someone in my field that can't even string a basic sentence together, lol.

[Yeah No]

12 hours ago, Ancaster said:

I have a question for you all: do people still write cover letters?

For the last 3 years of my job search I stopped including them with every resume because often there was no way to upload one, so I figured that in those cases they didn't want one. I did include one when there was a special option to do so. I kept a template that I would edit to suit every position. I'd try to make it look like I wrote it "from scratch" and put things in there to show how I stood out from the crowd in being a qualified and desirable candidate. I didn't want to send something too generic because that would actually be worse than not including any letter. It wasn't always an easy thing to do but I felt that it might be the "hook" I needed to get them to be more interested in me. I did get a lot of interviews so it might have worked. I wish I could say it helped me get a job but I stopped looking after 3 years of getting nowhere and ended up going with "plan B" which was early semi-retirement.

[Dimity]

16 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

I wish I could say it helped me get a job but I stopped looking after 3 years of getting nowhere and ended up going with "plan B" which was early semi-retirement.

Do you feel your age was a factor?  My sister was laid off when she was in her  50s and despite an awesome resume and good references etc she struggled to find a permanent job.  She ended up in a series of contracts which paid the bills but she never got that ideal full-time "forever" job.  She got pretty bitter about it and definitely felt that people looked at her and felt she was too old.

Edited July 21 by Dimity

[Yeah No]

18 minutes ago, Dimity said:

Do you feel your age was a factor?  My sister was laid off when she was in her  50s and despite an awesome resume and good references etc she struggled to find a permanent job.  She ended up in a series of contracts which paid the bills but she never got that ideal full-time "forever" job.  She got pretty bitter about it and definitely felt that people looked at her and felt she was too old.

Oh yes, I felt that being over 60 had almost everything to do with not getting a job. Despite trying to hide my age in various suggested ways on my resume and elsewhere there's really no way to effectively hide it anymore. 

Also I firmly believe that I was terminated from my last job because they found what they thought was an "easy way" to get rid of yet another older person. I was already aware of how people over 55 were dropping like flies under suspicious circumstances at this company. One of the directors in my department was using me as a shoulder at the time to vent his fears about being the next one on the "chopping block". As it turned out, I was the next one and he was axed soon afterward, again, with no reason given in what is a state that doesn't require a reason for termination. I did slap them with a lawsuit for terminating me while on workers' comp. (I fell at work and broke my arm pretty badly), and I won that lawsuit so I did get some satisfaction and compensation for what they did to me. Unfortunately, though, I also think they may have blackballed me on the "dark web" or wherever they are rumored to do that sort of thing. But to be honest I think it was  my age that did me in. And the pandemic didn't help, either.

Edited July 21 by Yeah No

[Cloud9Shopper]

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

Ouch, my sympathies, that must have been horrible to have to read. I understand keeping up on Linkedin but maybe it might be better for your peace of mind to tune out old bosses and coworkers at least for a while. I had to do that because of stuff like this. Although it's hard to avoid all the congratulations when they get promotions, etc. I had to turn notifications like that off.

It was particularly horrible because this company had NEVER engaged in white collar job lay-offs until 2009 and when it did so it refused to hire any of those people back unless you had someone in a very high place making an exception for you. So one of the biggest product companies in the world with many divisions in this area was not an option for me. Also because of this company's reputation as never engaging in lay offs and valuing its employees I thought I was good as gold to stay there until my retirement. Obviously that was true for most people there but I had to be one of the "unlucky ones".

Even worse is that my area-mate, another executive admin. was not laid off. Like a lot of people at this company she had been there for her entire career and at the time she was at least 60. She was not a hard worker at all and my boss and I used to wonder in private how she managed to keep her job. Despite her unhelpful and crusty attitude, her boss and department loved her and never said a word as she sat there and read the paper and magazines all day. They would approach her like they were afraid to ask her to mail a letter! My boss used to ask me how she got to sit there all day and do nothing while I had to work my ass off! Of course he knew why I had a lot of responsibility but he was not blind to the injustice and bless him for saying something to show he empathized with my situation!

So after I was laid off I couldn't stop imagining this woman sitting on her ass pulling in her great salary, packing away retirement and pension money (this is one of a very few companies left that provides a defined pension program). I heard she retired a few years later. She actually had refused a "company buyout package" for any employee over the age of 55. It was a sweet deal and too good to pass up, especially for someone with her seniority, but she was single and felt it was better for her to stay than go! Why should she leave when she had it made there?  LOL  BTW, I was still at the company when they offered the buyout but I was only 50 at the time so I didn't qualify. And I was laid off only a few months later. Again, my bad luck!

I don't know if I made it clear that although my next job looked like a great alternative to this one at a similar product company, it was not the case. I had to take a pay cut to work there and there was a toxic atmosphere at the corporate office that made my 5 years there not the best, and then I was wrongfully terminated while on workers' comp., which I already posted about previously. It was probably the best I could do at the time, though, so I don't regret taking the job. I just feel like I never got back on track after that original lay-off. It didn't help that at the time there were a lot of articles being written about how people who were laid off during that recession, especially women over 50, were never able to get back to the level of position and salary they once had. I tried not to think that would happen to me and that helped me get that next job, but unfortunately looking back on it, it definitely happened.

I’m going to be 40 next year and I already know it’s going to hurt my job prospects. It really bothers me how so many older people can’t get hired just because of their age, yet there are people under 30 literally making videos when they are CRYING on TikTok or something because they’re exhausted working 9-5 and they can’t handle it. (Yes I saw a video like this; girl was full on sobbing about how exhausting working is.) But since they are young and more attractive they’ll continue to get work even when posting shit like that. 

[Bastet]

19 hours ago, Ancaster said:

I have a question for you all: do people still write cover letters?

I'm sure it depends on the industry and profession, but in mine, yes. 

[Yeah No]

14 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

I’m going to be 40 next year and I already know it’s going to hurt my job prospects. It really bothers me how so many older people can’t get hired just because of their age, yet there are people under 30 literally making videos when they are CRYING on TikTok or something because they’re exhausted working 9-5 and they can’t handle it. (Yes I saw a video like this; girl was full on sobbing about how exhausting working is.) But since they are young and more attractive they’ll continue to get work even when posting shit like that. 

This topic is ironic considering what's been going on in current events these days. I am saddened and angered by the ageism in people's comments these days.  Do they even hear themselves? Wait until they're older and people want to push them out of their jobs because they're "too old". I understand that there is a point at which people decline and aren't able to keep up with job responsibilities but people are acting like over 60 is too old and it's not, especially if a person is mentally and physically able to handle the job. I know at my age (65, soon to be 66) there is absolutely nothing about my last job that I couldn't keep up with right now. But the way people are acting these days they are insulting older people and fully getting away with it like there's nothing wrong with what they're saying. I have only heard a handful of people really protest that in any public way, which also saddens me.

It shouldn't be about age. People age at different rates. Some people at my age may not be able to keep up with their jobs, but many could. My father at age 80 could think rings around most people younger than him, let alone people his age. People should be judged as individuals. It is taboo in our society to lump people together on many other factors but ageism is shockingly alive and thriving these days. And that's despite the fact that people are living longer and are in better shape at older ages. Younger people are acting like they should all step aside to let them have their turn. Well, excuse me, but I still have to put a roof over my head and it doesn't get any cheaper just because I'm older. What do they think I should do, go out on the ice floe and just die? And excuse me, but everyone's retirement money has been devalued by inflation in recent years. And not to mention the poor performance of the stock market since about 2021.

People from my generation would never have had the brass plated set to feel entitled to making their parents retire so they can have their jobs. We were told we should respect our elders and wait our turn. I didn't show up at 35 expecting to have the salary of a 55 year old, but that's what's happening today as I see it.

One thing that really angered me at my last job was that the director I mentioned in a previous post who was afraid he was going to be terminated based on being over 55 (he was 56 at the time) was convinced that a group of his subordinates had eyes on his position and were trying to push him out so that they could advance. What he told me at the time shocked and sickened me. These were young people in their late 20s and early 30s who didn't want to wait their turn to advance based on earning it. They launched into a campaign to lie and talk down about their boss to the head of the department. I am sure their comments about him contributed to his termination. I couldn't believe it - this was a man with a solid reputation and didn't deserve this at all. What happened to him was very demoralizing, but it was yet another example of how older people get pushed out. I had never seen anything like this in all my time of working. What has the working world become anymore? It's no wonder I am making do with less money rather than continue to be demoralized and get nowhere anyway.

On a more positive note, this man was fortunate in that he was taken back by his former company in an even better position. But what irked me about that is that it has been much rarer for me to hear comeback stories like this among the women I've known than the men after age 50 or so.

[Bookworm 1979]

22 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

yet there are people under 30 literally making videos when they are CRYING on TikTok or something because they’re exhausted working 9-5 and they can’t handle it.

I'm 45, work 40 hours a week and I'm exhausted every fucking day. Two days off isn't enough.  I'm just happy I don't have kids or I would never get a break ever. I have this week off and I'm already tired thinking of all the things I want to get done before I have to go back to work. It never ends.

[PRgal]

1 hour ago, Bookworm 1979 said:

I'm 45, work 40 hours a week and I'm exhausted every fucking day. Two days off isn't enough.  I'm just happy I don't have kids or I would never get a break ever. I have this week off and I'm already tired thinking of all the things I want to get done before I have to go back to work. It never ends.

You don't get breaks with kids, you truly don't.  My son had a meltdown his morning because he (yet again) didn't want to go to camp.  He just doesn't want to try new things.  He woke up with a stomachache, not because he's sick, but because of nerves.  Even though it's summer, we are still being strict about him at least trying.  We kind of bribed him with a new toy and book at the end of the week if he could at least try a couple of days.  He seemed okay at drop off and I haven't received a call from the camp...yet.

[StatisticalOutlier]

9 hours ago, Yeah No said:

But the way people are acting these days they are insulting older people and fully getting away with it like there's nothing wrong with what they're saying.

As opposed to our generation's "Don't trust anyone over 30"? 

You could argue, "Awww, we didn't know what we were talking about."  But maybe neither do the young people these days.

Quote

And not to mention the poor performance of the stock market since about 2021.

Say what now?  We're having all-time highs on all indices.

[PRgal]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

As opposed to our generation's "Don't trust anyone over 30"? 

You could argue, "Awww, we didn't know what we were talking about."  But maybe neither do the young people these days.

Say what now?  We're having all-time highs on all indices.

This!  My portfolio has never been better (okay, not so great last week, but it's still higher than the close of 2023)!

[Dimity]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

As opposed to our generation's "Don't trust anyone over 30"? 

Those of our generation who held this opinion weren't jealous of the older generation they were scared of them.  This generation may be scared too (I wouldn't blame them) but a lot of the rhetoric I hear in relation to jobs, money, ability to buy houses etc is based on envy and the perception that they should already have what grandma and grandpa have.

[PRgal]

8 minutes ago, Dimity said:

Those of our generation who held this opinion weren't jealous of the older generation they were scared of them.  This generation may be scared too (I wouldn't blame them) but a lot of the rhetoric I hear in relation to jobs, money, ability to buy houses etc is based on envy and the perception that they should already have what grandma and grandpa have.

And resentment to those who had help buying their home.  I hear a lot of complaints about privilege and wealth among those in their 30s and early-mid 40s.  It's to the point that I often don't talk about where I'm from/where I went to school/yadda unless it's the "right place." 

[Dimity]

1 minute ago, PRgal said:

And resentment to those who had help buying their home.

I don't see that as much, what I do see is a basic misunderstanding of mortgage rates.  When we bought our first house mortgage rates were finally falling  and we got the low, low rate of 12 %.  No,  I did not forget a decimal point.  I absolutely sympathize with anyone trying to buy (or rent for that matter!!) in today's market but I'll tell you who has resentment - it's people like me who are being made to feel that we always had it easy and life when we were first starting out was a bowl of cherries!

[Yeah No]

9 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

As opposed to our generation's "Don't trust anyone over 30"? 

You could argue, "Awww, we didn't know what we were talking about."  But maybe neither do the young people these days.

My generation?  I was 6 years old in 1964 when that phrase was coined. I was never a part of the generation that got what that meant, and that phrase never resonated with me at all.

9 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Say what now?  We're having all-time highs on all indices.

Using the money from the sale of my father's apartment I started an investment account in 2021 with one of the big financial houses. I might as well have put my money in a mattress. Only months after I deposited it the market started trending down in record fashion and I actually lost money. As of right now I have made only $3,000 since inception.

[Yeah No]

6 hours ago, PRgal said:

And resentment to those who had help buying their home.  I hear a lot of complaints about privilege and wealth among those in their 30s and early-mid 40s.  It's to the point that I often don't talk about where I'm from/where I went to school/yadda unless it's the "right place." 

What some younger people don't realize is that this has been going on forever. They tend to think older people all came right out of school making better money than they did but at least for people my age that was not the case. Some people my age were given money by their families to start out in life because it was very tough out there when we got out of college with double digit interest rates and unemployment. Meanwhile my husband and I came from modest means and didn't get any handout. We had to work more than one job for over a decade and eventually had to move out of state just to afford a condo. at almost 9% interest, which was considered low after being even higher, and the monthly payments were almost half of our income at the time.

BTW, not that it's a contest but during the mid-late 1980s I was working a demanding full time job, going to grad. school in a program that didn't cater to working people and working a second job. To say I was stressed out and tired all the time is an understatement.

[StatisticalOutlier]

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

My generation?  I was 6 years old in 1964 when that phrase was coined. I was never a part of the generation that got what that meant, and that phrase never resonated with me at all.

That's Interesting.  I'm a year older than you and I was definitely part of that generation.  And I was in a backwater town in Texas!

[Dimity]

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

My generation?  I was 6 years old in 1964 when that phrase was coined. I was never a part of the generation that got what that meant, and that phrase never resonated with me at all.

This is part of my problem with breaking us all down by our generation and then generalizing about it.  My uncle was born in 1947 and my sister was born in 1964.  That is almost 20 years, they lived very different lives.  He had friends die in Vietnam, she and her friends learned about the Vietnam war in history class.  And yet to hear "kids today" talk every boomer lived the exact same life.

[Yeah No]

17 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

That's Interesting.  I'm a year older than you and I was definitely part of that generation.  And I was in a backwater town in Texas!

Maybe that's why it resonated for you. I grew up in progressive NYC and my parents values were not that much different from my own. That phrase appealed to teenagers and 20 somethings that felt a huge rift between them and their parents' generation in terms of values. You remember the phrase "The generation gap" I'm sure. Especially in "backwater" Texas, parents' social values would have been much more traditional than those of the younger generations and the "generation gap" would have been much wider.

I've talked about this stuff with my husband and friends around my age and every single one has said they feel like I do. We scratched our heads about not trusting people over 30. What's not to trust? They were our parents, we'd better be able to trust them to take care of our needs as children! We sat on the sidelines while people 10 years older than us were leading protests against the war and many other issues, and rebelling against the "establishment". Most people my age were too young for that stuff and didn't really understand it. As we got into adolescence and then came of age in the 1970s we sympathized with the more progressive values behind that rebellion but we felt no burning need to engage in it ourselves because we just kind of felt that things were already changing and we were a part of that change. We weren't rebelling against some kind of repressive childhood from the 1950s because we didn't even remember the 1950s. We were becoming conscious as society was becoming more modern so we only looked forward, not backward. We learned about the way society used to be before the huge changes of the 1960s but that was not what we knew growing up. I'm sure that things would have been different for someone that grew up in a very socially traditional environment that hadn't really done much progressing in the 1960s, but for me and the people I knew that was not the case.

 

[ebk57]

49 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

That's Interesting.  I'm a year older than you and I was definitely part of that generation.  And I was in a backwater town in Texas!

I'm the same age as you are.  I grew up right outside of DC in a wonderful, close family.  And I am definitely of that generation and totally understand and identify with the concept.

[Yeah No]

20 minutes ago, ebk57 said:

I'm the same age as you are.  I grew up right outside of DC in a wonderful, close family.  And I am definitely of that generation and totally understand and identify with the concept.

But that's it - for us it was just a concept we sympathized with, not our entire identity and reality. That was for people 10 years older. I didn't know anyone my age who could be identified as a "hippie" who trailblazed a new lifestyle, joined a commune, ran away from home, protested the war, tripped out on LSD, went to Woodstock and rebelled against the establishment. People my age copied some of their clothing and hair and sympathized with their values, but most of us were actually rather conventional in general in our own lives. I've talked about the concept of "Generation Jones" before, and all of what I'm saying is a part of that concept. I don't want to repeat myself about this concept but there is a lot about it online if you look for it. In a nutshell we were like the Brady Bunch or "Wonder Years" kids. None of them were rebelling against anything, but I'm sure that as they came of age they sympathized with the new social values just as we did.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/meet-generation-jones-born-19551965-who-what-want-how-theresa-danna/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-understand-generation-jones-watch-wonder-years-theresa-danna/

Here is a quote from the second link:

Quote

A good way to see the difference between Baby Boomers and Generation Jones is to watch the television series The Wonder Years (which aired from 1988 to 1993 and is now available on DVD). The story of American 12-year-olds Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper begins in 1968 and extends into the mid-1970s. We learn in the pilot episode that Winnie's older brother has just died in Vietnam. In later episodes we discover that Kevin's rebellious older sister is a hippie who embraces an anti-war counterculture lifestyle, not trusting anyone over 30 and convinced that her parents will never understand her—so why bother talking to them?

Quote

Kevin and Winnie are not dedicated to changing the world; they are innocent bystanders who eventually have to figure out how to manage the fallout and live in that changed world. By the time they became young adults, the Vietnam war had ended and Watergate had started. Unlike their older siblings, they had to look for work during times of high unemployment and rising inflation. The idealist folk music they grew up listening to had been replaced by thumping disco music encouraging escapism from the real world into the world of partying all the time. The television shows they watched as kids did not reflect the Ozzie and Harriet family structure. Instead, The Brady Bunch showed the rising blended family structure. Julia showed how a professional, black, single mother can raise a well-adjusted child.

 

Edited July 23 by Yeah No

[StatisticalOutlier]

12 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

Especially in "backwater" Texas, parents' social values would have been much more traditional than those of the younger generations and the "generation gap" would have been much wider.

As it happens, my parents were among the few liberals in our town. 

[Yeah No]

7 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

As it happens, my parents were among the few liberals in our town. 

Well then you all had something to rebel against! My parents and I were in NYC where being socially liberal was more the norm. We enjoyed seeing the people ten years younger than them and ten years older than me fighting on the front lines for social change, but both me and my parents were more like passengers on that bus, not driving it. My parents liked to go to Greenwich Village some weekends and I went with them, so I saw those front lines up close and personal. War protests, women's rights, you name it. 

My parents loved to take road trips and one of my grandfathers lived down South and I always felt like I was going back in time when in some of those places. Everything was as if from a former time compared to my reality. Society was changing more rapidly in the big cities than in some other places, and that's still true in many cases.

[partofme]

I applied for unemployment with the state of New York about a month ago and still haven’t heard anything from them, so today I called up to get an update on the status of my application and was told that all agents are busy and that I should call back later this week and then they hung up on me.  

[Yeah No]

2 minutes ago, partofme said:

I applied for unemployment with the state of New York about a month ago and still haven’t heard anything from them, so today I called up to get an update on the status of my application and was told that all agents are busy and that I should call back later this week and then they hung up on me.  

I'm not in NY so I can't speak to the delay in getting back to you on your application, but my strategy for contacting any government office is never to call them early in the week because they are usually overwhelmed with the most phone calls then. Instead I wait until at least Thursday, but preferably Friday. It's amazing how short the hold times are and I've never been hung up on then either.

[StatisticalOutlier]

14 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Using the money from the sale of my father's apartment I started an investment account in 2021 with one of the big financial houses. I might as well have put my money in a mattress. Only months after I deposited it the market started trending down in record fashion and I actually lost money. As of right now I have made only $3,000 since inception.

Are you perhaps heavily invested in bonds?  I could see that being recommended for people in their 60s who have a windfall they want to invest.

That period was an outlier in that both stocks and bonds crashed; they usually move more or less in opposite directions.  Stocks have recovered spectacularly.  Bonds have not, although they at least pay dividends.

Whatever the cause, most people who own stocks are very happy with the stock market these days.