Antiwork

For context, I made a transfer to a satellite office 2.5 hours away from my company’s main office to not only explore a new opportunity but to get the hell away from my old boss. He plays favorites, makes me re-do work over and over despite making his requested changes (I was a copywriter), and basically made me feel alienated from the rest of the team. When this new position opened up I went after it and got it. Happily ever after, right? Nope! Old boss has been contacting my new boss about how I “struggled”, can’t be trusted to give optimal work, etc. I was never put on a PIP, all other departments liked my work, but this guy will just not give up on making my life hell. I want to quit but I signed a relocation agreement. How people get into leadership roles I will never know.

Does anyone recall the blog I Work At Pencils? About 10 years about, a dude working at staples made a blog to rip his employer the shreds. Eventually they found out who it was and fired him, so he turned the blog into a place to post others stories about their shitty jobs and bosses. Looks like he hasn't been active in a while, but its nice to look back at those who came before and spread the anti-work message. I wonder what this guy thinks about r/antiwork today. Special thanks to u/Austinuncrowned for reminding me of this blog in his post.

I was working managing a team of 2 reporting directing into a Super. With them in turn reporting into a Group Manager. (Account was on ML). When Account went on ML, a decision was made to re-hire an old employee who accepted a demotion to return as a PT Super. When they started, it was my job to train them up and it became evident she had an issue with the way we were doing work now. (Different process to when she worked there). Over time she began nitpicking everything I was doing & I flagged it with the Super I reported to. He believed a position for a FT Super would open soon and she was likely posturing for that ahead of me. I thought fair enough, im not too bothered about that. Until 1 day I couldnt take her comments anymore and I sent her a message expressing…

I just had another recruiter call. Here's how it went: Them: Hello! I found your resume on Dice and wanted to see if you're in the job market Me: Yes, I would definitely be interested Them: Great! This position is with (company) for the role of Sr. Systems Engineer, fully remote Me: That sounds good, and what's the pay range for this position? Them: That depends on the candidate's experience. How many years of experience do you have in engineering? Me: About 15 years Them: Great! And what is your current hourly rate? Me: I can be flexible on that, which is why I asked for the pay range Them: Like I said before, that depends on the candidate's experience. This is the pre-screening Me: So they aren't willing to be upfront about their pay range for the position? Them: …How many years experience do you have with Linux administration?…

“Bachelors of XYZ”, 1pt font, 0% opacity, and place the text in a random white spot on the template. Invisible to human eyes, but visible to ATS systems. I never went to university, and a degree is not the end-all-be-all to live a good life and make good money. But apparently lots of companies in the USA disagree, with my resume not even being looked at if it doesn't say the word “University” on it. So I said “fuck 'em!” and decided to add those keywords and make them invisible to the naked eye. My response rate has improved a decent amount since I started doing this (not a great amount, maybe 30-40% more responses if I had to guess). I should also mention that I still remain honest about my background/skills in every interview I attend. The only reason I do this is because it helps gets past the…