.png)
How do I tell my husband that his personality is the reason behind the missed promotion ?
My husband has been struggling for about a year as he was promised a promotion & it went to someone else. He thinks his boss passed it on someone else on personal agenda but I have a feeling that my husband's personality could be a great red flag for them.
I have to find out how to break it to him nicely as his mood is pretty low atm. And I am not good at giving constructive criticism.
He just hates his job pretty bad atm & will change jobs when we move to another suburb. I dont want him to repeat the same mistakes at his new job.
I am not saying, he's completely in the wrong. The company he works for is very dodgy & always prioritizing their profits so their young Nepo baby CEO can use to for his race car hobbies.
To start off.. my husband is very good at his job as a project manager. He can finish his jobs with ease while his Co workers are struggling. This actually made him egotistic & ruthless when dealing with anyone who he deems incompetent- even to his bosses.
He is individualistic person who wont ask for help or help others. He thinks everyone needs to learn for themselves. It makes him a poor team player.
He absolutely despise working for others. He has shown very little interest in the growth of the company & he challenges the authority of his new managers etc. I am not saying sucking up to your boss is the right way, but bosses dont give promotions to employees who despise them.
He gets cranky easily. I know my husband. When he's focusing on something & get interrupted, his tone is very different from his regular relaxed attitude. It makes you feel like you have to do your best not get on his wrong side or not to interrupt his work.
It would be absolutely tiring if you have a co-workers that makes you feel like working on egg shells.
To summerise his pros: More than competent at his job. Rarely makes mistakes so the company saves money (mistakes on each project can cost them $100k or more), he knows his shit so the major client of their company likes him. His projects bring in majority of the income for the company.
He delivers
His Con: Terrible team player, loves to challenge authority and hates his bosses, egotistical, masochist.
His company keeps disappointing him with failed promises of promotion while he knows he deserve it as he is doing a great job. And his growing resentment make the situation worse. Its a loop that keeps on growing.
Now they just let him do whatever he wants because they are afraid to loose him but I know they will let him go if they can replace him.
I want him to reflect on his behaviors so he doesnt carry those to a new job that makes him happy.
Jobadvisor
You've thought this through really carefully, and the fact that you want to protect him going into the new job — not tear him down — is going to come through when you talk.
A few things worth keeping in mind before you do:
Pick the right moment. Don't start this when he's venting about work — wait for a calm, connected moment, maybe after dinner or on a walk. You want him in a receptive headspace, not a defensive one.
Validate the company's genuine dysfunction first. You know it's dodgy. He knows it. Agreeing with that upfront takes away his main escape hatch ("but it's all their fault") and makes it easier for him to hear the rest.
Own that you're not neutral. You're his wife, not his boss. Framing it as "I love you and I'm scared for the new job" is more disarming than "here's your feedback." It's also just true.
Don't expect one conversation to do everything. You're planting a seed, not fixing a pattern overnight. If he gets defensive, don't push. Let it sit.
Advice on becoming a teacher?
I’m currently in Grade 12 graduating next year and going into York University for a Bachelors in Fine Art then Teachers College after to become an Art teacher and find what my second teachable will be during my years at University. I made a hard pivot last semester to be a teacher after I found out that trades probably isn’t for me once I started working an actual job and switched to swim thing I wanted to do, also generally opportunities around Ontario are cooked as well so I’m just gonna try at something I would have fun in.
What this means is that my courses are aligned to where I have more then enough experience in tech to be qualified for an apprenticeship to fall back on if I needed.
For the teacher aspect I am planning to volunteer for camps and such namely gonna apply for the AGO summer camp thing during the summer next year for some experience and hopefully find some other opportunities.
From the job I am working I have roughly ~4000 saved up but planning to quit very soon and summer will definitely drop that down quite a bit
Is there anything else I should know if y’all could inform me?
Jobadvisor
Your plan is pretty solid — here's what I'd add:
Your path looks good, but a few things to know about Ontario specifically:
Teaching jobs in Ontario are genuinely competitive right now. Supply (occasional) teaching for years before landing a permanent contract is extremely common, so mentally prepare for that runway. That said, Art teachers with a strong second teachable are more hireable than many, so choosing that second subject strategically matters a lot.
Second teachable — think practically: Subjects with chronic shortages get hired faster. In Ontario that tends to be things like: Tech/Design (you already have that background!), Math, or Computer Science. Given your tech experience, Tech Ed as your second teachable would make you unusually hireable and you'd actually be qualified to teach it. Something to seriously consider.
On the experience side: The AGO camp idea is great. Also look into being a supply Educational Assistant (EA) once you're in university — it pays decently, gets you into actual classrooms, and looks very strong on a Teachers College application. Some school boards hire EAs without a degree completed.
Money reality check: $4,000 will go fast once you're a full-time student. York BFA → Teachers College is roughly 5–6 years. Look into OSAP early, and consider part-time work you can maintain during school rather than fully quitting — something with flexible hours. Your trades/tech skills could mean decent-paying part-time or summer work in that field even if it's not your career.
Teachers College application: York's own concurrent or consecutive education programs are an option, but also look at OISE (U of T) and other Ontario faculties — you apply through OUAC's teaching portal and can apply to multiple. Your volunteer/camp experience will feed directly into your application essays, so document everything.
You're thinking about this the right way. The main thing is picking a second teachable that opens doors rather than just what sounds interesting.
I automated 3 hours of my daily work. Now I spend that time pretending to be busy.Has anyone else automated themselves into this weird limbo?
I work in operations, and my team spends ~20 hours a week manually pulling data from 4 different systems to build a weekly report. It was mind‑numbing, repetitive work.
So on my own time, I built a script. It pulls the data from all 4 systems, runs the calculations, and emails the final report automatically. It works perfectly.
Now I don’t know what to do. If I tell my boss, I might look like a hero… or I might just prove that our team is overstaffed. A friend of mine automated his job, told his manager, and within six months his whole department was restructured and he was laid off.
So for now, I finish my “real” work by 10 AM and spend the rest of the day pretending to be busy. It feels like winning and losing at the same time.
Has anyone else automated themselves into this weird limbo? What did you do?
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely tricky situation, and you're not alone — it's one of the more ironic traps of being competent at your job.
A few ways to think about it:
The "pretending to be busy" phase has a shelf life. It feels safe right now, but it's also kind of miserable, and it tends to leak — colleagues notice, managers notice patterns over time, and you're not growing.
Your friend's story is a cautionary tale, but not the whole story. The key variable isn't whether he automated — it's how he framed it. "I eliminated my team's job" lands very differently than "I freed up 20 hours/week of team capacity — here's what I'd like to redirect it toward." Framing is everything.
The real question is: what do you want? A few paths people in your situation have taken:
- Stay quiet and coast — low risk short-term, higher risk long-term, definitely soul-deadening
- Quietly use the time to upskill — learn something that makes you more valuable, so when the automation does come out, you've already moved up
- Reveal it strategically — bring a proposal, not just a confession. "I automated the report. Here's what I think we should do with the time I recovered." You become the person who solved a problem and had a vision for what's next
- Use it as leverage for a job search — you just proved you can identify inefficiencies and build real solutions. That's a strong story for a move up or out
The people who get burned usually walk in and say "I automated my job." The people who come out ahead walk in and say "I automated a process and here's the business case for what to do next."
If your salary was cut by $50K with little notice, would you try to negotiate or just plan your escape? (Possible equity on the table.)
It felt like the movie Office Space. My boss scheduled a meeting to go over new compensation plans. I assumed it was about how to earn bonuses which we did last year.
That was part of it, but he also told me my new salary which is $50K less! I haven’t lived off this amount in more than a decade.
Apparently, I have equity in the company but it’s not likely to be acquired anytime soon.
The reason for the cut, I was told, was to be more aligned with industry standards.
Total BS. What is wrong with companies? How can you cut someone’s salary by that much and act like it’s no big deal?
Anyone else face a similar situation? What did you do?
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely rough situation, and your frustration is completely valid. A $50K cut framed as "alignment with industry standards" is a gut punch dressed up as HR-speak. Here's how I'd think through it:
Negotiate first, plan your exit simultaneously. These aren't mutually exclusive. You can push back hard while quietly updating your resume.
On negotiating:
- Ask them to justify the "industry standard" claim with actual data. Pull your own comp data from Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, or LinkedIn Salary. If they're wrong, show it.
- Counter with a structured ask: restore some salary now, with a clear path (tied to milestones) to get back to your previous number.
- Push hard on the equity. Get specifics — vesting schedule, strike price, current valuation, liquidation preferences. Vague equity promises are often worth very little.
- Ask directly: "What would it take to earn back my previous compensation?" Their answer tells you a lot about whether there's a real future here.
On the equity: Be skeptical. "Not likely to be acquired anytime soon" means illiquid and uncertain. Don't let equity be the reason you accept a $50K haircut today — that's a classic trap. Unless you have strong conviction in the company's trajectory, treat equity as a bonus, not compensation.
Why you should also plan your escape regardless: A company willing to cut pay by that much with little notice has already shown you something important about how it values you. Even if you negotiate some back, the relationship has changed. Your leverage in any negotiation also goes up dramatically the moment you have a competing offer in hand.
The most powerful position you can be in is: negotiating from the inside while actively interviewing outside. That's not disloyal — it's rational given what just happened to you.
Why was I given a PIP and severance offer at the same time?
I was given both a PIP and severance offer at the same time today. I have never heard of this happening and was too confused to ask the questions I probably should have in the moment. Now, it's after hours, and I'm left waiting on an answer to my request to negotiate the severance amount. However, my manager also reached out to tell me I have to sign the PIP by tomorrow. I so extraordinarily confused. Am I able to sign both? Is it one or the other? If I sign the PIP tomorrow, does the severance offer go away? Has anyone dealt with or heard of this situation? When they presented these documents to me, it was probably, in total, a 5 minute discussion. When my manager reached out later, he mentioned that they didn't do a good job of explaining. I'm now left wondering how tomorrow is going to go. Am I still employed?
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely disorienting situation, and it makes sense you're rattled — being handed two seemingly contradictory documents in a 5-minute meeting with no real explanation is poor handling on your employer's part. Let me try to make sense of what's likely happening.
What this probably means
This is sometimes called a "soft exit" or "managed separation." The company is essentially giving you a choice:
- Take the PIP — stay employed, try to meet the performance targets, keep your job (for now)
- Take the severance — agree to part ways, get paid to leave cleanly
They presented both simultaneously so you could see what's on the table. It's unusual, and clearly they botched the explanation, but it's not unheard of — especially at larger companies trying to reduce headcount without formal layoffs.
Your key questions, answered
Are you still employed? Almost certainly yes, for now. Nothing is finalized until you sign something.
Is it one or the other? Yes — these are almost certainly mutually exclusive options. Signing the severance agreement typically ends your employment, which would make the PIP moot. Signing the PIP means you're staying and the severance offer would likely expire.
If you sign the PIP tomorrow, does severance go away? Probably yes, or at minimum the current offer terms would. This is exactly why you need clarity before signing the PIP tomorrow.
Can you sign both? No — they're designed to be alternatives, not complements.
What to do right now
Do not sign the PIP tomorrow without getting answers first. Your manager already acknowledged they didn't explain things well — use that as leverage to demand a proper conversation before any deadline. Specifically, you need to know:
- Are these two options mutually exclusive?
- What is the deadline on the severance offer?
- If you sign the PIP and don't meet its terms, will severance still be available later (and at what amount)?
- What happens if you sign neither right now?
A short email or message to your manager or HR tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, saying you need a 15-minute call before any signing deadline, is completely reasonable. The fact that they gave you a rushed, unclear presentation actually puts you in a reasonable position to ask for more time and clarity.
One important note: I'm not a lawyer, and if the severance amount is significant, it's worth having an employment attorney do a quick review before you sign anything — many offer free or low-cost initial consultations and can turn things around quickly.