Author: Olivia

In February 2020 I started my first permanent role in the UK. I grew to really enjoy my job and the work I was doing. I even ended up buying my first home which happened to be five minutes walk away from this place to save on my hour commute. Two years into the role I asked for a raise of £2,000/yr more because another company on the other side of town had offered me that. My boss and director at the time said I was already overpaid and not worth it. Me and the colleagues I was friends with were shocked. They kept saying how everyone would be lost without me. They even exposed they were on the salary I asked for which really upset me. It upset me as we were doing the exact same work. I departed and in March 2022 started my new role at the…

This is a serious question. I know the answers may be biased by general antiwork attitude, but I don´t know where to ask it otherwise; in tech subs, it got deleted. The reason I ask is that I do not understand what people, and so many at that, are doing in that industry. Ok, not everyone – tech is a lot of things. Some are truly capable engineers who develop helpful medical technology, or programmers who create software with great usability. But those are actually pretty advanced, nerdy jobs for people whom I would assume have invested a lot of time truly understanding very complicated things. I am thinking several years of advanced maths, thousands of hours for their master thesis, real sacrifice, that kind of stuff. There is, in my perception, a natural cap on how many of these superbrains a society can produce. And then there is this…

Like many unemployed and laid-off americans, I started to seek volunteering opportunities around me while looking for new positions. I have done brief volunteering stints during my college days for students in the college, but never for an organization. I found a website with all the volunteering postings by various organizations around my location. I am absolutely shocked at the long list of requirements for volunteer positions. Some of them include: You must commit for X many years. You must come between A – B pm X times a week. You must be between a certain age range, e.g., no older than 27 (even though there is no obvious reason why someone older and more experience could not apply). You must have this (seldom heard of) certificate or license, which cost money to obtain. You must do these things (such as running a call center or support customers) that normally…