Month: July 2023

My workspace is a storage closet. It's freezing cold – 90°F outside right now and I have the space heater going. There are no windows. I have a “specialist” role so I'm extra isolated from my coworkers. There's mouse shit on the floor and raining from the ceiling tiles, people take breaks in here and leave crumbs all over my keyboard, and I am just so fucking depressed I can't stand it. Not to mention I asked for a raise since I have this special role and they said the best they can do is an extra $1/hr. It's a massive corporation raking in billions yearly. We're so understaffed that they put me on the front desk at least once a week – this week I've been on the front 3 times. I feel like I'm not even a person anymore. I'm so miserable here. I'm really good at my…

I feel like if the system worked properly people who do this would be promoted and that’s how it should be. But that’s literally never what happens and I feel like too many people are too naive to realize this until it’s too late. You’re doing 2x the daily production number? Great! You’ll get more work with no raise and now our boss expects me and everyone else to do more as well because you raised the standard even if we don’t slack off and already meet productivity standards. It’s these two people on our team but the worst is Dave (name changed) Dave always did 2x sometimes even 3x the work. Was worried about this and predictably a couple of weeks pass and management sees how high Dave’s numbers are and decides to raise the number by 60%! Now surely enough Dave is doing almost 3x THIS number now…

It's my first week, but I'm scheduled to go in for 3 hours the coming Sunday 7-10pm because they are making the employees do a “test our knowledge” presentation on a product of choice. I won't have to do it, however I am scheduled to go in. The mall closes at 7pm. I do not want to go in, I overheard my coworkers say it won't be paid.

I just left a job interview where everything was going great, I was super interested in the position, it's an area I have expertise and a college degree in, but at the end of the interview the manager had the gall to offer me a $20k salary. I tried to negotiate, I was looking for 40, and pointed out that 20k is below minimum wage in our city. He was unfased. Spent the whole interview before that talking up how well the company treats employees and how everyone gets a say and people work there at least 5 years. If you treated people so well you would at least pay them minimum wage. And this was on the white collar/office side of the business, I can't even imagine the criminal wages they're paying workers in the warehouse. How can a business even get away with this?? I suppose I might…

Been at this tech company for nearly 4 years – starting salary wasn't bad for a fresh college graduate, but it was slashed significantly during the covid years since the company was barely stayinig afloat. That hit me pretty hard for a year, but I stayed loyal and worked hard, and my salary was reinstated. Picked up a bunch of new skills – branched out of my original role and all that. Even got a pretty nice raise last year (after 3 years at the company). During a particularly busy few months, we needed a new hire – I recommended someone whom I went to school with. They graduated a year before me so have some more experience time-wise, but doesn't have the same skillset – mines a bit more advanced due to my tenure at this office and also from branching out of my normal skillset. Picking up coding,…

I finished my PhD just in time for the 2008 recession to hit. I managed to land a postdoctoral fellowship, then once that was over started looking for jobs in my field; at this point it was 2011. The next town over from where I went to school had a biotech company start up that grew rapidly, and has done well. I sent so many resumes and applied to so many jobs with their company, never even got a call back let alone an interview. That was my experience with almost every biotech company I had applied to. I moved on with my life and got a job in a completely different field while, maintaining a consulting side hustle in my field.   After about 10 years of being underpaid in full-time shitty jobs to maintain health insurance, and continuing the side hustle, I landed a job with amazing benefits,…