A Case Of The Mondays: Vent Your Work Spleen Here

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, CrazyDog said:

I would never have the guts to quit without another job lined up (as much as I enjoy fantasizing about it, lol).

There's an expression among Amazon corporate employees called "badge on the table." It means quitting on the spot, not giving notice or saying goodbye, just taking your badge off, slamming it on the table, and walking out of the building, never to return. It happened enough times at Amazon that a phrase was coined for it. In my last year of working there, when I had the manager from hell, I fantasized about "badge on the table" almost every day, but I was on a work visa at the time, and would have had to leave the country if I had quit without having another job lined up. I ended up finding a great job that was a step up in my career, so it all worked out well in the end, but I'm still a little sad that I never got to have my "badge on the table" moment. 

[bilgistic]

I took medical leave (for my mental health) with no notice from my last commercial real estate job in 2017. I officially quit a month later. I couldn't have gone back for several reasons. I don't regret it at all. I took a year to get intensive treatment and find myself again after being abused for three years. I was poor as shit but I was free.

It was really, really hard getting back to work after that because of my mental health, but that job was killing me. In clawing my way back, I learned once again how resilient I truly am. Fuck the detractors and gaslighters and bullies.

Quitting is not a bad thing. Trusting yourself to know when you need to take a different direction is vital.

[ginger90]

13 hours ago, bilgistic said:

Quitting is not a bad thing. Trusting yourself to know when you need to take a different direction is vital.

I absolutely agree with this.

[Cloud9Shopper]

I have scaled back on my job apps lately. I was just getting tired of the process and didn’t have the energy to worry about throwing in multiple applications a day.

I’ve been interviewing this week for an instructional design role at a small company. The recruiter passed me to the next rounds immediately after the first interview with her and helped me set up the first interview with a team lead, then she sent me calendar links for the other two. I had the team lead interview yesterday, and I decided to just knock out the other two, so I’m meeting one person today and the last one tomorrow. All over Zoom. I’m aligned with the recruiter on benefits and pay (she already disclosed them to me) so that’s a good sign. 

I really hope I get the job. My boss is continuing to assign me scut work/busy work and I’m just so bored with generating PDFs and doing fixes while my coworkers get full plates and projects that actually use their skills. It feels like he’s trying to pigeonhole me, like “oh you can just do this task because you’ve done it before!” as if no one else on my team is capable. I spend most days wasting time between tasks and saving jobs to apply for after work. (I look for and save jobs on my personal phone so there’s nothing shady going on.)

Edited May 12, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[bilgistic]

This is a petty work peeve, but when managers schedule a (virtual) meeting with the whole team, calling it a "team meeting" in the calendar invitation isn't helpful and only serves to make me anxious. Like, give me a sentence as to what it's going to be about. And don't make it at 9am right when I walk in the door at work after my up-to-an-hour-long commute so I may or may not be on time. There's literally only one person who works before 9 anyway, and that's my boss, who isn't on the accounting team, which makes up the bulk of the attendees. I work across teams.

Edited May 12, 2022 by bilgistic

[bilgistic]

I found out that the meeting is probably going to be about one of the accountants resigning. She's found a permanent (non-contract/non-agency), salaried, i.e., higher paying, fully remote position. I'm going to ask her tomorrow what the company name is.👀 It's based in New Jersey.

[chocolatine]

20 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I found out that the meeting is probably going to be about one of the accountants resigning. She's found a permanent (non-contract/non-agency), salaried, i.e., higher paying, fully remote position. I'm going to ask her tomorrow what the company name is.👀 It's based in New Jersey.

Why does there need to be a team meeting to announce a resignation, unless it's the CEO who's resigning? An email with the team bcc-ed is more than sufficient in most cases.

[bilgistic]

That's an excellent question. These people can't communicate deadlines or anything else for that matter, but they call a meeting to tell us a (one of my co-) contract employee is resigning. I messaged the employee in question afterward, telling her congratulations and asking her where she was going. She wouldn't tell me the company name. Oh, well.

The manager dropped in a few lines thanking us for our hard work with quarter-end responsibilities. How about some more money and transfer us all to permanent, salaried, benefitted status so that people feel more secure and perhaps won't leave? This now makes two contract employees in three months. The woman leaving said that she's literally leaving because she needs to feel secure and have benefits. No job is secure, but still. We can be fired just on whim as it is now--they can just say to our agency, "It wasn't working out."

[chocolatine]

7 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I messaged the employee in question afterward, telling her congratulations and asking her where she was going. She wouldn't tell me the company name. Oh, well.

Check her LinkedIn page in a couple of weeks, she'll probably have updated it with her new employer by then.

[bilgistic]

I checked this afternoon, but she's not on there.

[Sweedish Fish]

I am very lucky that I only have to into work one day a week.  I telework the other four.   I got home from that one day at work, had a glass of wine and fell asleep.

Woke up at 8:30 and thought 'oh no I am late to work!"  Quick signed in and emailed my boss the usual 'good morning/check in email'   It was 8:30 pm 🤪

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Sweedish Fish

[bilgistic]

People ask me why I set my clocks to "military time". It is for exactly that reason. I'd set alarms for pm instead of am so, so many times.

Edited May 15, 2022 by bilgistic

[Annber03]

2 hours ago, Sweedish Fish said:

I am very lucky that I only have to into work one day a week.  I telework the other four.   I got home from that one day at work, had a glass of wine and fell asleep.

Woke up at 8:30 and thought 'oh no I am late to work!"  Quick signed in and emailed my boss the usual 'good morning/check in email'   It was 8:30 pm 🤪

LOL, aren't moments like that fun? When I worked at a bookstore, there was this one time I had this dream where my mom had come home from work and we were both sitting around watching TV, and then it hit me that it was well after 5:30 pm and I was supposed to be at work for my evening shift.

I woke up all panicked and freaking out like, "Oh, no, I'm late!" Then it hit me I didn't have to work that day, and I was like, "...oh, thank god." and went back to sleep :p. 

[Cloud9Shopper]

So this morning, after hearing my company say last month that they were going to hold off on hiring more people for a couple of months, I got an email that they had hired a new instructional designer! I’m pissed because I have been busting my ass for a year now going to school, giving presentations on my work with management support and not to mention I have had no disciplinary issues and also have a good track record of performance. And yet they tell me “we can’t guarantee you a promotion” and go out and hire this woman when they also said they were freezing hiring. I would bet any money she knows someone in the company who could get around the hiring freeze. Or management lied to everyone. 

I am fuming about the way I’ve been treated. But hey I gotta give it to my managers. I wish I were as good at lying as they were! Fuck them. Seriously.

I hope I get the job I interviewed for last week so I can tell them (nicely) to go pound sand. My boss is not going to get a chance to match the offer if I get it. I’m done going above and beyond for this job. I’m not doing anymore presentations and I won’t help the new hire any more than is necessary. I’ll do my best while I’m still there and no more. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[bilgistic]

On 5/16/2022 at 2:41 PM, Cloud9Shopper said:

Or management lied to everyone.

This.

I'm really hoping you get a job you love somewhere else soon because your company sucks donkey balls.

[Cloud9Shopper]

12 hours ago, bilgistic said:

This.

I'm really hoping you get a job you love somewhere else soon because your company sucks donkey balls.

Thanks, me too! I am so sick of applying at this point. If I don’t get this job I’ll have to fix my resume for the third time and keep working on my portfolio. I am still applying places while I wait to get word. I think my interviews with this company went well and I connected with everyone, but it’s not up to me at this point. Last time I looked for a job pre-pandemic, I lost my job during the search but was back to work within a month of my job loss. Now this is supposed to be such a great job market where everyone is getting way better jobs and I’m still not hired after eight months. And interviews are a lot longer these days too. 

 

[magicdog]

Just walked past a co-worker (one of our morning anchors) who had just bought a house.  I congratulated her and she asked for some advice on "being an adult".  I suggested things like changing the AC filters monthly (and recommended a great site I've used for quality American made filters) and started suggesting a few more things.  She was puzzled at how much stuff has to be done!

She mentioned she was worried about bugs she found in/near the plumbing.  I offered to recommend a great exterminator (and she has to have one monthly to keep them at bay), but she said her friend was going to have his guy do it and she's hoping (I kid you not!) that the friend will go on paying for it!!  Seriously, this woman makes 6 figures easily and she wants to piggyback off her friend over an exterminator???!!!  I make a fraction of what she does and I pay mine!!!!

[bilgistic]

Yesterday, our data analyst gave his notice. Last week, one of our staff accountants gave her notice. The analyst leaving is going to be a huge blow, because he does a lot of very specialized work. The accountant has been with the company since March 2020, while the analyst has been there for years. They, like me, are both contractors. We are really hoping that this is going to make management wake up and see that people want the relative security and better pay of a permanent position, along with benefits. Both people leaving are going to better-paying, permanent, salaried positions.

This comes right after the quarterly meetings in which the executives tell us all how great the company is doing and how thankful they are for us having "gotten them through" the past two years. SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION WITH MONEY AND BENEFITS.

[magicdog]

2 hours ago, bilgistic said:

We are really hoping that this is going to make management wake up and see that people want the relative security and better pay of a permanent position, along with benefits.

Rarely does that happen.  Management is always in denial and insist their way works,  They'll just find two more people and not give it a second thought.

My own mangers (Bitcheroo in particular) drive people off the job constantly but they never realize why or try to retain them longer.  

[Cloud9Shopper]

I feel drained from work today. We had to attend an “inclusive team communication” workshop (it was based on oops, ouch, whoa if you want to look it up; it’s not an original creation of my HR department) and it was one of those things where the facilitators/organizers had good intentions but it ended up feeling so uncomfortable and stressful. For example, at the beginning of the meeting we had to think about times where we (even unintentionally) hurt someone with our words or were on the receiving end of hurtful words. And the facilitators were asking people to share those experiences and discuss them. Thankfully they only took two responses before moving on. 

Then we had to go into breakout rooms and discuss different communications scenarios , and even thinking about times I’d been on the receiving end of similar words was too much for me. I hated it so much but the facilitators were insistent that we “get something out of it” and they were encouraging people to put in the chat box what we learned and what we’ll try to do better in the future. 

Maybe I’m just an old soul in the work world but I really hate this idea that’s spreading that we should be more authentic and open at work. I really don’t want to talk about times I’ve been hurt in front of my coworkers or talk about “making amends” with an HR rep. It’s just too much for me.

Unfortunately I haven’t heard anything from the place I interviewed at yet. All I know is that I need a better work culture really soon. 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[Kitty Redstone]

Oh @Cloud9Shopper that sounds awful.  It's actually creepy that workplaces think these very personal experiences are any of their business.  Beyond the unprofessional atmosphere it creates, I'd be wondering just how they planned to use this information in the future,

[Cloud9Shopper]

1 hour ago, Kitty Redstone said:

Oh @Cloud9Shopper that sounds awful.  It's actually creepy that workplaces think these very personal experiences are any of their business.  Beyond the unprofessional atmosphere it creates, I'd be wondering just how they planned to use this information in the future,

They did send a survey out after the workshop and said it was anonymous, but if you wanted to invite further follow up, you could give your company email. I always feel pressured to say I enjoy these things so I don’t look “uncooperative”, especially when the rest of my team is saying they liked it and thought it was useful. Luckily my manager didn’t ask my thoughts on it in our regular one-on-one and our daily team standup was canceled yesterday so hopefully by Monday he doesn’t bother asking. 

Sometimes I miss working for the small law firm I used to work for. It had its issues (like every company) and I was not a good receptionist, but there were only eight employees and people were generally there to work! You know, like adults. We didn’t have to sit in staff meetings where our boss/the owner made us listen to this nonsense and ask really personal questions. 

 

Edited May 21, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[CrazyDog]

Those sorts of workshops are just so awkward. Sorry you had to attend it! Who wants to discuss those sorts of things in an open forum?

On 5/18/2022 at 5:33 PM, bilgistic said:

This comes right after the quarterly meetings in which the executives tell us all how great the company is doing and how thankful they are for us having "gotten them through" the past two years. SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION WITH MONEY AND BENEFITS.

So much this. Same irritation with my place. They are spending like crazy, but the one raise I've had in several years was almost an insult. You want to reward and thank your employees? Provide for them. Loyalty is a two way street.

I had a conversation with someone at my company about my role, and I received some reassurance, but I am still looking elsewhere. Unfortunately, I've realized I'm definitely dealing with some burnout, and that's tough. I had to acknowledge to myself that it can color my view of things, and make me feel really cynical, and that's not a fun mental place to be.

I remember my introverted Dad saying years ago that he just wanted to open a little bookstore when he retired where he could just read all day. Sounds like a dream, ha.

[Bookish Jen]

I've been at my job for just over a year, and so far, nearly 20 people have left the company.

[Cloud9Shopper]

3 hours ago, Bookish Jen said:

I've been at my job for just over a year, and so far, nearly 20 people have left the company.

That’s a lot! My department has had several people leave in the last year and I eventually got tired of hearing about resignations and stopped signing goodbye cards. 😂I’m not sure what company turnover as a whole is like because we have a few hundred employees, but management has indicated areas where they’ve seen lower marks on company surveys and they’re scrambling now to do a compensation study. 

Our management feels tone deaf though. That workshop I thought was inappropriate for work last week? Our department head said in our meeting today oh that was part of the professional development you guys said you wanted! I don’t recall asking to go to therapy with my coworkers, Janet, but go on. And honestly when we have meetings that are supposedly work related, I end up having to participate in icebreakers like “What ice cream flavor best describes you?” and “What do you look like when you dance?” Or it ends up being nearly half an hour of people making rambling complaints and small talk about everyone’s weekends and what we’re watching on TV. Management is just so disorganized and useless here. To be honest I feel as if all the small talk and forced icebreakers in meetings are a way for management to avoid addressing any problems. That if they spend time talking about “connecting” and how much they “care” they can ignore the fact that people have jumped ship and they have almost no plans to replace anyone. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[chocolatine]

13 hours ago, Bookish Jen said:

I've been at my job for just over a year, and so far, nearly 20 people have left the company.

20 out of how many? Attrition has been high for most companies recently - you may have heard of "The Great Resignation" - so, depending on the size of the company, this may be normal. But if you're close with any of the people who have left, you could ask them why, just to see if there's a pattern.

[Bookish Jen]

10 hours ago, chocolatine said:

20 out of how many? Attrition has been high for most companies recently - you may have heard of "The Great Resignation" - so, depending on the size of the company, this may be normal. But if you're close with any of the people who have left, you could ask them why, just to see if there's a pattern.

I'd say there were around 30-35 people in total. One retired, and a couple were let go. But most left on their own accord. One mentioned she was leaving because she was sick of the lack of organization and cohesiveness. Plus, workloads are increasing, and it's totally overwhelming.

Edited May 26, 2022 by Bookish Jen

[magicdog]

One of our photogs was nearly run off the road on live TV!

We have a segment every morning called "Morning Rover" which is a photog travelling in a station vehicle (station logo et al)  around town to show traffic in real time at driver level.  It has been helpful in showing accidents and fires in real time as well. 

Today he was on the freeway as usual (in the far right lane) when out of nowhere, a car carrier (the kind that carries cars between dealerships) nearly runs him off the road!  It was like the driver never bothered to look in his mirrors!  It happened on live TV during our traffic segment and even the traffic reporter was taken aback!  We rolled on it so I was able to loop it and we repeated it for about 2 hours.  Don't know if we can identify the driver, but he better be careful or someone won't be as good a driver as our  man was!

Bright side?  One of my work friends had a birthday today, so he, myself and my edit partner had a mini celebration!  I bought 3 PinkBox poop donuts (with luscious buttercream frosting).  It was great! 

[GHScorpiosRule]

After putting in 12 and a half hours yesterday and 10 hours today, I SO Needed this:

[MargeGunderson]

I am working (from home) 9-12 tonight and 6am-6pm tomorrow (also from home). It’s unusual for me, and I am going to hate it so much.

[SuprSuprElevated]

6 hours ago, magicdog said:

One of our photogs was nearly run off the road on live TV!

We have a segment every morning called "Morning Rover" which is a photog travelling in a station vehicle (station logo et al)  around town to show traffic in real time at driver level.  It has been helpful in showing accidents and fires in real time as well. 

Today he was on the freeway as usual (in the far right lane) when out of nowhere, a car carrier (the kind that carries cars between dealerships) nearly runs him off the road!  It was like the driver never bothered to look in his mirrors!  It happened on live TV during our traffic segment and even the traffic reporter was taken aback!  We rolled on it so I was able to loop it and we repeated it for about 2 hours.  Don't know if we can identify the driver, but he better be careful or someone won't be as good a driver as our  man was!

Bright side?  One of my work friends had a birthday today, so he, myself and my edit partner had a mini celebration!  I bought 3 PinkBox poop donuts (with luscious buttercream frosting).  It was great! 

You may have seen this story -  chicago-man-pointed-gun-news-crew-live-report

Edited May 27, 2022 by SuprSuprElevated

[Cloud9Shopper]

Back to work for another week. I could feel my mood shifting yesterday as soon as I realized I had to work today. I wish I could just get in somewhere that doesn’t make me silently rage every Sunday (or Monday, I guess, in cases of holidays). 

I did get some good news last week! I decided to apply to a tech sales bootcamp since I have some sales-related experience from past jobs and figured I could leverage that into a career if instructional design doesn’t work out. And I got accepted! It starts in a couple weeks. Really, the worst thing that happens is that I hate it and decide I don’t want to do sales. It’s a free program with no income share agreement so I won’t lose anything but my time if I flop.

The bad: I had four interviews with a company three weeks ago and they never got back to me! They didn’t even an answer a follow up I sent not this past week but the week before that. I thought sending a follow-up after a week was appropriate. No reply even to say “sorry we went with someone else” or “we got held up but we’ll contact you on X day.” The rudeness of some employers will never cease to amaze. I mean I’m sorry but after all those interviews and me communicating with the recruiter after each one (as she requested) the least they could do is get in touch. 

[Bookish Jen]

2 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

Back to work for another week. I could feel my mood shifting yesterday as soon as I realized I had to work today. I wish I could just get in somewhere that doesn’t make me silently rage every Sunday (or Monday, I guess, in cases of holidays). 

I did get some good news last week! I decided to apply to a tech sales bootcamp since I have some sales-related experience from past jobs and figured I could leverage that into a career if instructional design doesn’t work out. And I got accepted! It starts in a couple weeks. Really, the worst thing that happens is that I hate it and decide I don’t want to do sales. It’s a free program with no income share agreement so I won’t lose anything but my time if I flop.

The bad: I had four interviews with a company three weeks ago and they never got back to me! They didn’t even an answer a follow up I sent not this past week but the week before that. I thought sending a follow-up after a week was appropriate. No reply even to say “sorry we went with someone else” or “we got held up but we’ll contact you on X day.” The rudeness of some employers will never cease to amaze. I mean I’m sorry but after all those interviews and me communicating with the recruiter after each one (as she requested) the least they could do is get in touch. 

They should definitely get back to you if you've gone through four interviews. 

[emma675]

Unfortunately, ghosting has become very common in the job hunting/recruiting world. I thought it was just me when it happened a few months ago after I did 5 rounds of interviews with a company and never heard a word back, but apparently it's not. If you google or look on reddit, it seems to be a nasty new trend. Plus, another new trend of requiring way more rounds of interviews than usual. And recruiters and companies wonder why it's so hard to find candidates...

[Cloud9Shopper]

14 minutes ago, emma675 said:

Unfortunately, ghosting has become very common in the job hunting/recruiting world. I thought it was just me when it happened a few months ago after I did 5 rounds of interviews with a company and never heard a word back, but apparently it's not. If you google or look on reddit, it seems to be a nasty new trend. Plus, another new trend of requiring way more rounds of interviews than usual. And recruiters and companies wonder why it's so hard to find candidates...

The job I have now, sucky as it’s gotten, at least handled the interview process well. I had two rounds of interviews (one phone, one in-person; this was before the pandemic) and a short skills test that took maybe an hour, if that. I didn’t even talk to HR until the offer letter came and I had to do the usual first day paperwork. 

These days it seems like the interview with HR, meeting the hiring manager, then other teammates and maybe a higher-up (plus an assessment if your job requires those kinds of skills) is more common even in jobs where so many interviews shouldn’t be necessary. Companies act like we’re all trying to be FBI agents or cardiothoracic surgeons. 

And oh yet another person in my department announced they are leaving. I’ve lost track of how many have jumped ship in the last year. I bet management won’t do crap besides keep the hiring freeze in place and throw another “Monday motivation” at the issue, then talk about what great servant leaders they are. 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[Bastet]

4 hours ago, emma675 said:

And recruiters and companies wonder why it's so hard to find candidates...

While they hammer that "No one wants to work" lie right into the ground.

[Rose Quartz]

5 hours ago, emma675 said:

Unfortunately, ghosting has become very common in the job hunting/recruiting world. I thought it was just me when it happened a few months ago after I did 5 rounds of interviews with a company and never heard a word back, but apparently it's not. If you google or look on reddit, it seems to be a nasty new trend. Plus, another new trend of requiring way more rounds of interviews than usual. And recruiters and companies wonder why it's so hard to find candidates...

I'm currently dealing with this and it's very frustrating.  Last month I made it through a full three rounds of interviews and haven't heard anything since, although the position is still showing as open.  Even worse, I had a hiring manager contact me directly because she thought I'd be a good fit for a new opening in her group.  (I had interviewed with her for another position earlier in the year but I had to decline when the location of the position changed.)  We had several conversations and email exchanges and she said she'd notify me when the new position was posted, but since then radio silence.  I sent a follow up email a couple of weeks ago to see if any issues had cropped up but no reply to that either.  I'm really surprised based on how responsive she was during our previous interactions and kind of at a loss about what, if anything, I should do next.

[Cloud9Shopper]

That really sounds similar to the place I interviewed at. The recruiter had so much enthusiasm and then just radio silence. 

I really just want to get out of my company, especially since so many people I liked working with have departed or are about to be gone and my management is being cagey about advancement and reluctant to support me in a path to the job I want. I mean…I do like people who are still there but it’s hard when it feels like everyone else is jumping ship and getting amazing offers but you. 

I did set up an interview for Monday, though, and my mom assured me she said Hail Marys for my own job search. (We’re Catholics; I got the intent and it’s fine.) My birthday is in a couple weeks and I was just hoping I’d be able to celebrate it with a new gig. 

[bilgistic]

I'm so fucking sick of my boss. If she doesn't do something, it's my fault for not reminding her. If I remind her, I did it wrong. If I ask her how to remind her, I'm questioning her decision. It's fucking exhausting.

[Annber03]

Gotta love that awkward moment on the job where people call with questions related to things you're still learning about them or about how to do in the office, and you have to explain that you're new to the company and you feel like a total idiot for not knowing what they're asking or talking about. Had a few phone calls like that at my job today. It was...not fun. The callers didn't intentionally make me feel bad or anything, mind, they rolled with everything as best they could, but still... 

[LexieLily]

3 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Gotta love that awkward moment on the job where people call with questions related to things you're still learning about them or about how to do in the office, and you have to explain that you're new to the company and you feel like a total idiot for not knowing what they're asking or talking about. Had a few phone calls like that at my job today. It was...not fun. The callers didn't intentionally make me feel bad or anything, mind, they rolled with everything as best they could, but still... 

The first few days at a new job or directly after implementing a new policy aren't fun, especially when you feel like everybody knows the exact right answer and right thing to say but you. Here's hoping you have a considerate and helpful supervisor, and not one that gets annoyed when you ask questions and look at you like you're supposed to know this, why are you asking me?

(No, I didn't have a supervisor like that, why do you ask? :p.)

[theredhead77]

Been looking for about a year and a half

Over 100 resumes submitted

Countless friends reaching out trying to connect me with recruiters within their company and people they know

Too many interviews to count

Zero offers received

I'm stuck in this shithole state until I find a new job

FML

[emma675]

The petty side of me was rewarded this morning, hehe. I work in corporate communications so we deal with a lot of questions, complaints, etc. I'm working on a project with IT to upgrade our login processes for colleagues; basically we're adding an additional authentication step to make it harder for hackers to get into an employee's laptop. Kind of annoying, but necessary given that we deal with customer's private information. We've spent months preparing employees for what's coming, creating job aids, multiple communications before it goes live, special resources to call internally for help, we could not have prepared people any more than we did. The head of InfoSec and I get an email from an employee this morning that is basically forwarding one of the comms back with this (and this is the actual content he sent): ????????????////////.

I email him back and ask him to direct any questions to the project team email, located several times in the original communication, or to call the internal number for live help. He emails back this in all caps, less than 2 minutes after I emailed him: 

1. I EMAILED THE PROJECT TEAM - NO RESPONSE

2. I CALLED THE 888 NUMBER, THIS NUMBER JUST CONSTANTLY RINGS BUSY

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what his question is in the first place since he didn't bother to include that in any of his emails. Then it hits me--he's dialing the number wrong. It's an 866 number, not an 888 number (and it's in all of the comms he's received as 866). I politely point out his error (while grinning evilly the whole time) and he never responds back. 

This man is a Vice President in our company and chose to act like that while copying our head of Info Sec, who ranks higher than him. What is wrong with people? I would never in my life write or act like that in a professional setting. 

[JTMacc99]

29 minutes ago, emma675 said:

This man is a Vice President in our company and chose to act like that while copying our head of Info Sec, who ranks higher than him. What is wrong with people? I would never in my life write or act like that in a professional setting. 

My experience is that it really doesn't matter what a person's title is. Just because they're really good at the one thing they're good at professionally, and have advanced accordingly, doesn't mean they aren't who they are personally. (People in Sales are often fine examples of this.)

I've discovered that at my company, I'm typically one of the first people with my title to get new equipment or software updates from IT. If something needs to be ironed out before being more widely deployed, apparently it's better if they test it out on me than my less patient peers. 

[Cloud9Shopper]

21 hours ago, theredhead77 said:

Been looking for about a year and a half

Over 100 resumes submitted

Countless friends reaching out trying to connect me with recruiters within their company and people they know

Too many interviews to count

Zero offers received

I'm stuck in this shithole state until I find a new job

FML

I’m about to go into month nine. Part of my motivation is hating my apartment rental (story better saved for chit-chat than the work thread) and wanting to get something nicer since I’m only in a one-year lease. And my company hired from the outside again instead of even offering to interview me or give me a chance to apply. “Hiring freeze”, huh? 

I am giving my resume and instructional design portfolio an overhaul and will try applying one more time. If that doesn’t work then I’m going to keep looking for tech sales jobs. (I applied for seven or eight sales jobs or related and secured two phone interviews already. Guess that’s a sign of something!) 

[GHScorpiosRule]

21 hours ago, theredhead77 said:

Been looking for about a year and a half

12 minutes ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

I’m about to go into month nine.

Keep the faith. I was looking and submitting resumes for two years before I got the job where I've now been for four years. Well in August it will be four years.

[SuprSuprElevated]

22 hours ago, emma675 said:

What is wrong with people?

Their mommies kept telling them that they were special.

[Spartan Girl]

I've been applying for new positions for years. I've been at my current one for over eight years, but every higher position I apply for winds up with a person with more experience in that department, even though I stress in interviews that I am a fast learner and would do the job to the best of my ability. It does feel hopeless sometimes.

[chocolatine]

5 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I've been applying for new positions for years. I've been at my current one for over eight years, but every higher position I apply for winds up with a person with more experience in that department, even though I stress in interviews that I am a fast learner and would do the job to the best of my ability. It does feel hopeless sometimes.

From an interviewer/hiring manager perspective, a candidate telling me that they're a fast learner means absolutely nothing. I only believe it if the candidate can give an example of when they learned something complex much faster than was expected from them.

And please don't tell interviewers that you would do the job to the best of your ability. That's the minimum expectation for every candidate and should go without saying. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by chocolatine

[Spartan Girl]

42 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

From an interviewer/hiring manager perspective, a candidate telling me that they're a fast learner means absolutely nothing. I only believe it if the candidate can give an example of when they learned something complex much faster than was expected from them.

And please don't tell interviewers that you would do the job at the best of your ability. That's the minimum expectation for every candidate and should go without saying. 

It’s just hard trying to sell yourself as a candidate for a job. I want the experience but it feels like nobody will give me a chance.