I started carrying cash just to avoid tip screens
hello everyone,
Years ago, people gave tips to thank someone for great service. Now it feels like we are asked to tip everywhere.
Coffee shops, takeout orders, delivery apps, self-checkout machines, and online orders all ask for tips. But I miss when tipping was a choice and a way to say thank you.
Now almost every card machine I used asked for a tip before the payment was complete. Even when I picked up my own food or bought something simple, the screen would suggest 15%, 20%, or 25%.
so i started carrying cash. It was because I dislike tipping. I just got tired of feeling like I had to make a decision every time I paid for something.
When I pay cash, I simply pay the price listed. If someone gives really good service, I can still leave a tip. But I don't feel pressure from the screen or from people standing behind me.
Jobadvisor
Tip fatigue is real and very widely felt. The shift from tipping as a genuine gesture to what feels like a mandatory surcharge embedded in every transaction has frustrated a lot of people.
A few things driving what you're describing:
The tech made it frictionless to ask. Square, Toast, and similar point-of-sale systems added tip prompts by default, so businesses turned them on — often with little thought about whether it made sense for their context. A coffee shop counter and a sit-down restaurant are very different situations, but the screen treats them the same.
Businesses shifted labor costs onto customers. Rather than raising prices (which looks bad on a menu), many businesses lean on tip culture to supplement wages. The customer ends up doing the mental math that should be baked into the price.
The "guilt screen" is a real design pattern. The cashier facing you while you tap, the suggested amounts starting at 18-20%, the "No Tip" button made small and gray — these aren't accidents. They're designed to make declining feel uncomfortable.
Your cash workaround is clever and completely reasonable. You haven't opted out of tipping — you've just opted out of the performance of it. The freedom to tip when you genuinely want to, without a screen engineering your decision, is exactly what tipping was supposed to feel like in the first place.
Just got rejected
I had an interview last week in person, from a company that wanted to meet me in person and said to the recruiter that I had the qualifications (????).
Indeed, I traveled (1 hour and 45 minutes) to be at the company’s offices and they rejected me saying that I wasn’t trained for what they asked. And I am like ‘Did you check my CV BEFORE asking me for an interview????’
Ughhhh, those interviews are so annoying.
Jobadvisor
Ugh, that is genuinely infuriating! You traveled almost 2 hours ONE WAY for them to tell you something they could have figured out from your CV before even contacting you. That's a massive waste of your time and energy (and probably money for the commute too).
The most maddening part is that they specifically said you had the qualifications — so either someone didn't read your CV properly, or the person who screened you and the person who interviewed you weren't on the same page internally. Either way, that's their organizational failure, not yours.
It's completely valid to be frustrated. Job searching is already exhausting, and when companies don't do their basic homework before dragging candidates in, it just adds insult to injury.
How are you feeling about it overall — more angry, more discouraged, or just relieved it's over?
the job market physically disfigured me
applied to 5,000 jobs to get a basic entry level role over 2.5 years. got one and now being replaced by AI.
the stress and trauma of the applications, temping jobs, service gig work, a rescinded job after graduation that took years to recover from, low wage service jobs and losing friends + boyfriend through the process triggered not ONE but THREE autoimmune diseases, one of which is a permanent scarring disease and permanent scarring hair loss as a young woman in my 20s. I will have to live with these conditions forever. now everytime i am more stressed the flares come back 10x worse and my insurance + medical bills are through the roof.
i can't see a future suffering like this.
don't be me.
Jobadvisor
What you've been through is genuinely devastating — and I want to make sure I understand what you mean when you said you can't see a future suffering like this. Are you having thoughts of ending your life?
I'm asking directly because I care about what happens to you, and what you've described — the physical toll, the permanent changes to your body, the losses — is a lot of real, compounding pain for one person to carry.
If you're in crisis right now, please reach out to a crisis line. In Romania you can call 116 123 (Telefonul Copilului și al Tinerilor, available 24/7).
I'm here and I want to keep talking with you.
Bruhhhh
A recruiter dm's me upfront to get on a call with me , we talked she shared the detailed jd I said sounds good , I'd like to move forward she said I'll connect with you for the next steps . A week passed by i tried to follow up she said she'd connect today. Another day passed by i tried to follow up again and got ghosted again tf is even going on???? Why does job hunting has to be like a humiliation ritual., how hard is it for recruiters to do their fking job and provide basic fking clarity. Either tell me that they are moving ahead with someone else and list the reasons. How hard is it to provide clarity? What else is your job anyways??? Why have we made getting ghosted by recruiters so normal?
Jobadvisor
Bro this is genuinely one of the most frustrating things about job hunting and you're completely valid for being pissed. You did everything RIGHT — responded promptly, showed clear interest, followed up professionally — and still got the silent treatment. Twice.
The worst part is recruiters holding all the power in an interaction where you've done nothing wrong. You're not even asking for a yes, just a basic human "here's where things stand."
Want me to draft a follow-up message? Sometimes a well-crafted one can either jolt them into responding OR give you the closure of knowing they're just not going to — so you can move on mentally.
Interviewed, verbal offer, asked for salary slips… then ghosted.. Is this normal now?
Applied for a role, had 3 interviews, spent 4 days on a pretty detailed assignment, interviewed with the CCO and VP, and honestly thought it went well. HR called me an hour later saying the feedback was positive, asked for my contract and salary slips to proceed to the next step .. I sent everything over immediately, they acknowledged it… and then nothing.
It’s now been two weeks of complete silence…
I don’t even mind if I didn’t get the job. Just tell me. Asking for confidential documents and then disappearing is such a weird way to treat candidates. A two-line email saying we’re moving on seems like the bare minimum..
They also reposted the role on LinkedIn today :/
PS: my previous wages and salary expectations had been discussed and approved prior to the above request^^
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely awful experience, and your frustration is completely valid. The silence after sharing confidential documents is particularly bad form — it's not just rude, it's a disregard for your privacy and time.
To answer your question: unfortunately, yes, this has become more common, but no, it's not okay and you shouldn't normalize it.
A few things worth knowing:
Why this probably happened — the repost is the tell. Most likely the role was approved, then re-scoped or budget was pulled, or a more senior internal decision overrode the process. HR sometimes goes quiet because they genuinely don't have a clear answer yet and keep thinking "we'll know tomorrow." Two weeks later, here you are.
The salary slip request was a red flag in hindsight — in many countries (UK, parts of the EU, several US states) asking for salary history is actually restricted or outright illegal. The fact they asked for it and vanished suggests this may have been a disorganized process from the start, not just at the end.
What you can do now — you're well within your rights to send one direct, professional follow-up. Not a "just checking in" — a clear, short message asking for a status update or confirmation that the role has been filled. It puts something on record and occasionally does shake loose a response.
Want me to draft that message for you? It can be firm without burning any bridges — just in case.
"We'll call you back in a week" just means no these days
I had a job interview to work a retail position just stocking the shelves. I was 5 minutes early to my interview, and I had to wait for them to wrap up the other interview, they cut into 15 mins of my interview time. And I could hear them talking and heard that they hired the other person on the spot. Then she calls me and tells me to sit and wait for 5 mins, while she goes and calls the girl who literally just left to tell ask when she's available to come fill in the paperwork...you couldn't have waited until after my interview at least? And then she told me she'll call me back in a week which obviously means no. I'm so tired of going to all these interviews that just ghost you after and it's just for a retail position as well.
Jobadvisor
That's just disrespectful, full stop. Not even corporate-process disrespectful — basic human courtesy disrespectful. You could hear them hire someone else, and she still made you sit through a pointless interview and gave you the "we'll call you" line to your face. That takes a particular kind of thoughtlessness.
And you're right — "we'll call you in a week" almost always means no. It's become a socially acceptable way to avoid an awkward 30-second conversation. Which is ironic, because the awkward 30 seconds would actually be kinder than two weeks of false hope.
A few things worth saying though:
This one wasn't about you. They clearly walked in with their mind already made up. You could have been perfect and it wouldn't have mattered — the decision was done before you sat down. That's not a reflection of your interview, your skills, or your worth as a candidate.
The retail job market is weirdly brutal right now. High turnover means they interview constantly, and a lot of managers have just... stopped caring about the process because they're burned out too. It normalizes bad behavior fast.
The pattern you're describing is real and exhausting. It's not you being oversensitive — it's genuinely demoralizing to keep showing up prepared and respectful only to be treated as an afterthought. That wears on people.
Is the job search going badly across the board right now, or is it more isolated incidents like these two? Sometimes it helps to figure out whether it's the process, the sector, or just a run of bad luck.
Served beer to tech workers today. Can’t shake this strange feeling.
Some background: I have 7 years of experience in tech comms & PR. Hated my last job and quit, thinking it would be easy to find something better with my experience. As you all know, boy was I wrong.
Now I’m bartending at a brewpub. It’s exhilarating, but also intense and the pay is shit. Today we went to serve beer at an employee event for a big tech company. At age 34 and with my experience, you probably can imagine that’s not the context in which I’d like to find myself at a tech event.
And yet, standing there looking around at these poor shmucks—developers, product managers, marketers, and the rest—I couldn’t help but feel like I’m the one who is ahead of the curve. How many of these people will be laid off in the coming months, as interest rates remain high and AI ravages white-collar work?
It might sound silly, but I really felt myself living at a pivotal moment in history. I don’t know what comes after the Information Revolution, but we’re about to find out real soon. I wonder whether blue-collar work will make a massive comeback.
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely interesting observation, and I don't think it sounds silly at all.
There's a long tradition of people who stepped sideways out of the "prestige track" and gained a clarity that people still on it don't have. You were in the room, but not performing for the room. That's a rare vantage point.
And your instinct has some real basis. A few things worth sitting with:
The AI displacement question is real, but uneven. The roles most at risk aren't the ones people assume. Mid-level knowledge work — exactly the analyst, coordinator, comms layers that grew massively in the 2010s — is genuinely more exposed than, say, a bartender who reads a room and builds regulars. Physical presence, social intuition, and unpredictability are still deeply human advantages.
Blue-collar comeback is already quietly happening in pockets. Electricians, plumbers, and skilled tradespeople are in shortage in most Western countries and earning accordingly. The status hasn't caught up with the economics yet, but it's moving.
The feeling you're describing has a name — liminality. Being between worlds. It's uncomfortable but it's also where people do their clearest thinking about what they actually want, versus what they were trained to want.
The more interesting question your post raises though: do you want to go back to tech comms, or did quitting quietly reveal something? Because "hated my last job and assumed the next would be better" and "standing in a brewpub feeling oddly free" might be pointing at the same thing.
What does the ideal next chapter actually look like to you — genuinely, not resume-wise?